


The World We Knew

by WisteriaReads



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: "Platonic" Cuddling, Alternate Universe - College/University, Because he's in de Nile, Both are too idiotic to realise though, Competitive Allura, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Domestic Fluff, Except it got deleted, Family Fluff, I'm really just adding tags when I feel like it, It was supposed to be for Cause You're learning Me by safra, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Keith and Pidge's friendship gives me life, Keith and Shiro are Adoptive Siblings, Keith is in Egypt, Korean Keith (Voltron), M/M, Mutual Pining, Shiro Knows, So much obliviousness, They are conspiracy bros, broganes, cooking disasters, don't mind me, everyone knows, sooo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-09-19 05:01:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 36,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9419840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WisteriaReads/pseuds/WisteriaReads
Summary: Wake up at 5:00.Go to the gym.Shower.Go to lectures.Evening shift at the convenience store.Late night revision.Rinse and repeat.While Keith wasn’t completely opposed to ‘change’, he just rather prefer not to have anything change at all. His life was perfectly fine the way it was. Tiring, but fine.Even in his earlier years, Keith was always one to establish routine. A change in routine was only partially the reason why Keith did not actively seek out his roommate though.People as a whole were unpredictable. Messy. Complicated. He was happy; he didn’t need to seek out someone he didn’t know to make his life seem more complete.What could one person do to change his life?(Keith's POV from safra's cause you're learning me)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [safra (orphan_account)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/gifts).



> To the lovely safra. I hope I've done this fic of yours justice. If not... well... let's hope it does't get to that...
> 
> I am currently trying to escape the reality in which it is two degrees outside and the gas has broken in the entire town, meaning no hot showers or heating for the next few days while I can slowly feel my extremities and brain freeze off. All the while despairing that I do not have a Netflix account.

_6:15._ Keith glanced down at his watch, heaving a deep sigh as his eyes roved over the articles he had yet to write notes on strewn across the coffee table.

It was still too early to go to his shift and the professors hadn’t set anything work out that day. He knew that he probably should continue with his studying, but the papers were proving to be an uphill battle in terms of mental perseverance.

He had re-read this one particular paragraph for roughly 10 minutes, the words floating from the page as sleep depravity started to catch up. After about an hour of studying, he found his eyelids fluttering, a vain attempt to keep the heavy presence of sleep that clung to his being away.

Sleep embraced him, its warmth seeping into Keith’s bones, his breaths coming out in soothing drags. He could feel his brain addling, coherent thoughts becoming increasingly hard to come by as his brain started packing itself with cotton wool, his limbs becoming lead heavy. It was beginning to get to the point where holding up the textbook became more of a herculean effort.

 _“Study.”_ His rational brain told him, firmly standing its ground. But despite its spirit to continue studying, Keith could feel his rational voice getting weaker by the second.

 _“Sleep.”_ The rest of his body protested.

“ _No honestly. I need to continue studying! The notes! I have to finish those notes!”_ Keith’s eyes shot open, his eyes wide from the jolt of waking up. He quickly looked down, as if to check someone hadn’t stolen his textbook.

“ _Too bad. You don’t really get much of a say in this.”_

FLOOMP. Next thing Keith knew, he had collapsed onto the sofa (read: soft heavenly pile of clouds), legs sprawled across the sofa, sinking into the deep murky depths of sleep.

 

* * *

 

If there was anything that could really disorientate Keith, it was rude awakenings.

He was floating aimlessly in the dark, his mind relaxed, without a care. Everything was a serene cal-

Three sharp pokes to the forehead.

Keith frowned at that, the darkness of sleep lessening around the edges. He swatted away whatever intruder dared to disturb him. Once assured that the menace was gone, Keith sank back to sleep.

One single jab to the forehead, the pressure much harder than the previous assaults.

Keith gritted his teeth as light came seeping into his peripherals; he could feel his body getting heavier, nothing like the lightness of sleep.

Groaning, he rolled over, hoping to get away from the disturbance. “Five more minutes.” It was supposed to sound like a command but his mouth was still heavy with sleep and it ended up sounding like a drunken slur to him.

Suddenly a flash of pain shot through his forehead. Keith’s eyes jolted open, his vision still fuzzy. He could hear a cackling from the figure in front of him and he was abruptly filled with rage. In his mind’s eye, he had been thrusted back into his times at the orphanage, when the other children laughed in mockery at Keith’s startled cream covered face upon waking up. He did the only thing which he knew he could do.

Retaliate.

With a quick strike with his palm, the assailant was sent flying away from him, later followed by a loud whack on the wooden coffee table. With a groan, Keith brought a hand up to the bridge of his nose, pinching it as if to alleviate the migraine he could feel building up before using the base of his palms to rub his tired eyes. When the ringing in his ears stopped and his vision cleared, he looked down at his assailant and noted a couple of things.

Firstly, the ‘assailant’ was _not_ a chubby fisted 7 year old with the intent of humiliating him. Secondly, rather than a pudgy, snot covered child as he was expecting, a young man lay sprawled on the floor, his hands flitting from rubbing his chest to his side. The stranger was currently scowling at Keith, irritation laced in his expression.

 _So that was what the loud thump was…._ Keith thought belatedly.

Thirdly, he would be lying if he said that the man in front of him wasn’t… well… cute. Because he was. Even the scowl that was presently on his face couldn’t do much about that. But that was beside the point.

“Dude… what the _fuck_.” The stranger cried out, rubbing his chest. That was enough to bring Keith out of his reverie.

“Sorry. Sorry.” He managed to mutter out. The anger in him still burnt steadily, reluctant to fade. And as much as Keith wanted to be angry at the man who woke him up, it was hard to do so when the guy was lying spread-eagled on the floor, looking around bewildered with wide blue eyes.

 He warily eyed his assailant, still somewhat vexed as to how he got into the flat and unsure how much he could trust this guy. Holding out a hand to help the guy up, he added quickly. “Reflex”.

His time before he got adopted into Shiro’s family had left a distinct imprint on his mind and the reflexes that he had acquired at the orphanage had a nasty habit of making itself known, always rearing its ugly head at the most inconvenient time. There was one time when Shiro had tried to scare him from around a dark corner. It had resulted with Shiro being held in a vice like grip as Keith twisted Shiro’s arm behind his back. Fortunately, Shiro had taken it completely on board and had flipped the tables by giving Keith a noogie. Unfortunately, it meant that Shiro sprained his wrist and was refrained from writing for about a fortnight.

“Your reflex is to frickin’ bodyslam your flatmate to the ground when he tries- very _nicely_ can I just say- to wake you up?” The stranger grunted out, accepting Keith’s outstretched hand with reluctance.

Keith bristled at this. If there was another thing the orphanage had taught him: it was to defend his views.

“I didn’t _bodyslam_ you.” Keith retorted with a snort, his fingers making air quotations as he said ‘bodyslam’. He glared at the stranger, crossing his arms across his chest.

“And _you_ poked me. Like _three_ tim- Wait... You’re my flatmate?” Abruptly, everything came to a grinding halt as everything started to fall together. He blinked owlishly, his lips pinched together in realization at the man who turned out to be his flatmate.

_“That would explain why he’s in the house….”_

_“Come on… what do you know about your roommate? Think...”_ Keith wondered desperately as he tried to buy some time by clicking his tongue in thought.

  1. His name was either Larry or Lance. He couldn’t really tell from the scrawled notes that was sometimes left strewn across the floor. From far away, the writing looked really neat. But then up close, it had become a scrawl of joined letters, where the ‘n’ looked like ‘r’ and ‘e’ occasionally looking like ‘y’.
  2. Whether it was intentional or not, but Larry/Lance always made too much food. He always left a note on the fridge with a blue Post-It note, complete with a doodle of what Keith thought might be a cat? Possibly an alien? Maybe a deformed apple? It was a splodge with whiskers like things protruding from it. It was anyone’s game for interpretation.
  3. Larry/Lance had a very large family, if the pictures in his room was any consolation. For Keith, who had shifted from family to family, he thought it would be a nightmare trying to remember all their names and ages. (Especially when some of them bore uncanny resemblances to another family member. Like a doppelganger, but not quite) Who had the brain capacity to store up all of that?!
  4. Larry/ Lance must be quite patient to continue living with Keith’s lack of knowledge of how to do what should be the simplest things. He lost count of how many pieces of Lance’s or his own clothing he had accidentally stained when using the washing machine. Somewhere in the forties. Probably fifties. Max. It was a good thing that he had washing pods and not liquid. Knowing him, the washing machine would have flooded the surrounding area because he put the liquid in the wrong container.



“It’s Larry, right?” Keith eventually said, looking down at the scowling stranger.

“Lance…It’s Lance” the man replied through gritted teeth, his voice hiding a barely concealed ire.

 _“Well… Shit. This has been a_ great _introduction….”_ Keith thought to himself, internally grimacing at his mistake.

“And you’re-….” Lance started, clicking his tongue to mirror Keith’s own actions earlier. Keith may or may not have scowled a little at this.

“You’re Kevin?” Lance’s face looked up at him with expectant eyes, a small frown etched on his face.

With a quirk of his eyebrow, Keith shot Lance an unimpressed stare, his face revealing little emotion.

“Keith.” A look of realisation dawned on Lance’s face, his eyes widening almost comically in shock. Keith noted with a little amusement that Lance looked a little like a deer caught in headlights.

“Eh.” Lance shrugged nonchalantly, or tried to anyway. Keith rolled his eyes at Lance’s response. “Close enough.”

“It’s really not.”

“Yeah, well you called me _Larry.”_ Lance shuddered, his nose wrinkling in disgust at the aforementioned name. He jabbed his thumb in his direction, his face twisted in an incredulous look.

“Do I look like Larry to you?”

Keith cocked his head at the question and squinted at Lance, his eyes quickly skimming Lance’s features. He had always been terrible with names. In his first year with Shiro’s family, he had continuously called a girl in his class “Hannah” even though her name wasn’t, simply because, he quoted “She looks like a Hannah”. He continued to call her Hannah for the rest of her time there before she moved away, much to her disbelief and chagrin and even to this very day, he was still not sure what her name was, except that it is NOT Hannah.

“I mean….”

“Don’t. Don’t you dare.” Lance warns him, displeasure clearly written on his face as he menacingly threatened Keith with a fork. “Just shut up and eat.” Is the only thing he said, stuffing a mouthful of stir-fry into his mouth.

“What?” A sense of confusion fell upon Keith and he couldn’t help but blink in surprise. Based on how much of a fuss Lance kicked up about getting his name wrong, Keith was surprised that there wasn’t any scornful looks shot his way or wasn’t any further argument about names.

 

“Eat.” He says through a half full mouth, noodles threatening to spill out of his mouth as he nodded to the other bowl on the coffee table. “Hurry before it gets cold. I accidentally made too much.” Keith could feel his brows furrowing in.

_Why would this stranger make food for me?_

“I-“

Keith let himself peer down at the bowl of noodles and couldn’t help but purse his lips.

 _“It looks like it’s been washed in oil….”_ Keith thought, the noodles gleaming somewhat ominously. _Or potentially worms… Is he trying to poison me?_

“Chill. I didn’t poison it or anything. It’s good. Just eat it.” Lance seemed to have picked up on his hesitance and proceeded to twirl another forkful of noodles, spearing a piece of beef in the process.

Silence soon overtook the two as Lance let Keith eat his portion of stir fry. Lance’s halfhearted reply of cooking too much due to habit was very quickly brushed aside, but Keith didn’t have the heart to say otherwise. It warmed Keith’s heart that a complete stranger had the kindness and awareness to cook another portion of the meal, without asking anything in return. The stir fry, despite the fact that it looked like it was bathed in oil, tasted pretty good.

Keith closed his eyes, savouring the taste of the stir fry in his mouth; the rich briny soy sauce weaving among nuances of crisp spring onion (the small thin ones), the slippery noodles contrasting against the rough and bark like texture of the beef. Just because he couldn’t cook, didn’t mean that he couldn’t appreciate food for its taste. It had just the perfect amount of-

“Are you seeing anyone?”

_Wait… WHAT?_

His reverie was brought to an abrupt stop, the train of thoughts imploding on itself like a weak tunnel, burying any semblance of clear and reasonable thoughts. Keith choked on his noodles, beating his chest in great whacks to dislodge the food substance from his oesophagus, his mind stuttering like a break in a record. He could feel his face warm up as he turned to face Lance.

 _“What is this guy trying to suggest? I’ve only just met the guy!”_ Keith panicked, sweat beginning to bead underneath his overhanging hair.

”What?” Keith managed to stammer out, wincing at how his voice suddenly had leapt an octave or so, cracking like some pre-pubescent boy.

Lance, evidently not expecting such a reaction from Keith smiled sheepishly at him, rubbing the back of his neck ruefully.

“Well… you’re hardly ever here, so I was wondering if maybe you were dating someone and you spend all your time at their place.”

_Oh shit. Maybe I should find a shovel. Dig myself a nice hole to sit in._

“I-“

“I mean, it's not a big deal if you  _are_ dating someone and that's where you are all the time. It'd just be nice to know where you are. If you're alive or...” Lance trailed off, his hands mindlessly gesturing in front of him.

_I’ll just lie in the hole and wait for death to come…. Sounds like a good plan around about now._

Keith glared at the tissue box perched on the far side of the table, as if pinning this awkward conversation on it. The stubborn thing refused to relent to his gaze. The little shit.

“I’m not.” Keith replied hastily. “Dating anyone, I mean. I’m-I’m not.”

“So what do you do all day? Cause, not to be weird, but Hunk is almost certain you're a vampire and, I gotta be honest man, you're  _really_ not doing much to change my mind about that.”

Keith’s mind blipped at that. Had he heard that right?

“A vampire?”

“Pidge is rooting for you to be a ghost, but” Lance waved off Keith’s question before prodding Keith gently in the thigh. “Not gonna lie, that one doesn’t seem all that plausible.”

A beat of silenced followed, the silence pulled taut like a bow.

Perhaps it was the pile of workload on his shoulders, or the pressure of his studies, or even the coffee full and sleep deprived state of mind he was in, but suddenly he was laughing.

 It bubbled out of him, slowly at first like water flowing down a creek but eventually it flooded out of him, an uncontrollable torrent of laughter. He started gasping for breath, so caught up in laughter that he had no time to breathe. The lack of oxygen and the fast approaching tears that threatened to cascade out made the world seem fuzzier, the colours seem brighter. Keith could barely make out Lance’s form in the laugh induced blur.

_When was the last time I laughed this hard?_

“No. I work.” He paused to wipe a couple of tears from his eyes. “If I’m not here, I’m either at a lecture, or at work, or at the gym.” He glanced back at Lance to find a dumbstruck face staring back at him.

Lance sharply inhaled before letting out an impressed whistle, eyes widening in concern and astonishment.

“That’s intense.” Lance managed to say, his brows raised to his hairline.

  Keith shrugged at this, his face souring a little. It wasn’t as bad as Lance thought it out to be. It’s not as if he knew that his entire scholarship depended on these grades or the fact that it wasn’t a full scholarship.

“You get used to it.” He mumbled out, running his hands through his unruly hair. He couldn’t help but deeply sigh as his fingers lightly scraped against his scalp, the feeling soothing and relaxing.

“Do you? Cause, no offence, but you look like _shit.”_ Lance said earnestly, the corners of his mouth dropping down in concern, his brows furrowing closer.

The black haired man knew he looked like shit, but ouch- that was a blow to even the least narcissistic person’s pride.

He laughed, his tone brittle and lacked any humour in it. “None taken.”

Hauling himself from the sofa, Keith started for the kitchen area, bowl gripped tightly in his hand. Without turning back, Keith muttered a tense “Thank you for the food.” As he entered the kitchen.

“It’s _fine.”_ Lance quickly said, cutting off what Keith was about to say, gesturing flippantly as he dropped the bowl into the sink. “I told you, I made too much. You were doing _me_ a favour by eating it.”

 _We both know that you made too much intentionally._ Keith thought but didn’t dare voice out.

As if privy to his thoughts, Lance shot him an innocent smile in reply, displaying all his white teeth.

“Thanks. I’ll get the dishes when I get back tonight.” Keith decided to let the matter slide. It wasn’t like Lance was going to say otherwise anytime soon.

“Tonight! You’re going out again?” Lance all but shrieked, tumbling a little trying to catch up with Keith.

“Work. Remember?”

“But-But you _just_ passed out on the couch.” Lance replied incredulously, gesturing with flailing arms to the aforementioned sofa, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. “You’re _tired_ , man. Go to sleep.”

It’s something that Keith gets told time and time again, both by Shiro and his adoptive parents. Yet being the stubborn person that he was, all of it went in one ear and flew out of the other. He couldn’t help the chuckle at the thought that Lance, who was still a stranger to him, was taking on the role of mother hen, clucking at him disapprovingly.

“I’ll be fine, Lance. Thanks for the dinner.” Keith said, shouldering his jacket as he started towards the door. He glanced quickly back at Lance, to find that Lance was leaning on the counter, arms crossed across his chest and an expectant look on his face, as if waiting for something.

 _“Am I supposed to say something else? Why does he look like that? Was I not polite enough?”_ Keith thought rapidly, his hand gripped on the door handle. As he opened the door, a gust of chilly air whistled past. With a grimace, Keith tightened his hold on his jacket and proceeded to close the door.

Well… Tried to anyway. His hand remained clenched on the handle, refusing to budge.

_“I really ought to say something. As my new room-mate, I need to have a good relation with him.”_

“Um… Bye.” Keith called back into the house. It sounded like a child’s unsure question, hanging awkwardly in the air. He couldn’t help but feel a surge of mild embarrassment simmering under the surface from the lack of a reply.

“Bye, roomie!” came the delayed chirp of his room-mate. Lance poked his head out of the kitchen, grinning as he waved back to Keith.

_Huh… Maybe people aren’t as complicated as I thought._

* * *

 

“Keith  ̴ where can I find the soup stock? You’ve changed it from its usual place.” An old woman asked, her gnarled hands placed atop her cane. With a slightly miffed sigh, Keith looked up from his textbook, noting who was asking the question, before he turned his attention back to his textbook.

“We haven’t moved it, Madame Chan. It’s in the same place where it was two days ago, when you last asked me.” Keith replied tiredly, quietly amused and frustrated at the same time. What frustrated him wasn’t the question. Rather it was that Madame Chan would, most likely, forget that this conversation happened and would eventually ask him come two to three days later, and this cycle would probably continue for the rest of the time that Keith would work there. The life of manning the conveyor belt at the store…

“But I looked at the refrigerated area and I couldn’t find it.” The woman replied in the same sweet tone, completely oblivious to Keith’s reluctance to speak.

“Madame Chan, I told you this _last_ time as well, but you won’t find the soup stock in the refrigerators. They are in the canned soup areas.” Keith replied, his exasperation increasing as he pinched the bridge of his nose. The older woman laughed, before apologising for her forgetfulness.

Suddenly the scrape of sneakers against the tiled floor could be heard and a screech of a banshee hurtled past the cashier in a blur of colours, wrenching Keith from his studies. A young girl of 8 years old promptly popped up within Keith’s line of sight, eyes bright and out of breath, her bright pink scarf contrasting against the canary yellow coat she was wearing.

The young girl took a deep breath before she whipped towards the older woman. Keith couldn’t help but smile slightly at the grandmother and granddaughter duo’s conversation, already well acquainted with their bizarre antics.

“Po Po, we’ve been through this! Don’t bother Keith unless it’s really absolutely urgent! Soup isn’t! Let’s go home! I have to watch my TV series!” She cried out in rapid fire, leading the older woman away by the crook of her elbow.

The elder woman gave a tender chuckle, looking at her granddaughter lovingly as the younger girl tried to drag her grandmother away, to no avail.

“But then what are we going to have for dinner?” The older woman chided.

With an impatient click of her tongue and a spin of her heels, the girl dashed back. She darted amongst the aisles sparrow-swift, recklessly weaving amongst the other customers, like an out of control rocket.

“WHICH ONE DO YOU WANT?” the girl shouted from the corner of the store.

“The chicken.” The grandmother replied with a soft smile gracing her lips, eyes glimmering bright and her near translucent skin crinkling like rice paper at the corners of her eyes.

“THE USUAL ONE!” Keith shouted back in lieu of the elderly woman. She gave a swift appreciative nod, one which he promptly returned back. Working at the convenience store really wasn’t as bad as everyone thought it out to be.

Yes, he had to wear a disgusting uniform; the highlighter green clashing with the prune like purple. Every time Keith donned the uniform, he couldn’t help but shudder. He looked like a child’s nightmare of Barney the Dinosaur. Yes, the shift hours were long and tiring. His pay was meagre. But it was the people who he encountered at the shop that made it slightly more bearable.

The hectic antics of the bizarre, the sweet gestures of the couples, and the exasperated groans of mothers as their children piled the shopping trolley with junk food. Plus, the shop always provided as a great source of gossip. Like who was cheating on who, who just got sacked and whose affairs had been blown apart. But sometimes, all he wanted was quiet: especially when he had an upcoming deadline for his essay about experimental radio cosmology, accretion and jet physics. Which in this case, he did.

“Here’s your soup stock, Po Po.” The girl grudgingly quipped, giving the box over to Keith. With the practiced ease of an expert, he held his apple in his mouth as he turned the textbook page with one hand, the other passing the box in front of the scanner.

As soon as the box left Keith’s hand, the girl grabbed it like a squirrel going for a nut and tugged her bewildered grandmother away. As the door opened, they were harshly welcomed by a torrent of frigid air, biting Keith to the core.

He glanced up as several teenagers stood pathetically bundled outside the shop, their feet trudging heavily on the pavement, before turning back to his work. It wasn’t the first time that he pitied the people outside, who had to bare the vicious winds, while he was toasty and warm indoors. The poor sods.

 He had been re-reading the same paragraph over and over again, and he still didn’t understand it. Taking small bites from his apple, he nibbled contemplatively, thoughts focussed wholly on the words before him.

In his periphery, he heard the door open, letting several loud mouthed teenagers tumble into the store.

 _As long as they don’t disturb me, I’m fine._ Keith thought, muttering several equations to himself. The noise in the store eventually ebbed away, leaving Keith in blessed silence with his algorithms and structures of telescopes.

That silence didn’t last all that long though.

As the teenagers got closer to the cashier, it became harder to block out the noise. Harder to concentrate. Harder to do anything physics related. He dared to glance up, surveying his surroundings before his eyes locked onto a familiar faced Latino boy, whose face was slack with shock, eyes bugging out. Lance offered a shy wave, as if to apologize for the intrusion, following a short girl and a larger boy to the counter. The other two were having a heated debate about which cereal; out of _Frosties and Cornflakes,_ was the best.

 The girl was vividly countering the larger boy’s arguments, hands sweeping across her in wide arcs as she tried to emphasise how Frosties were better.

“No, you don’t understand though. Frosties are _so_ much more superior to cornflakes! You don’t have to put sugar on them because they are already on it! It also means that you won’t ever forget to put sugar in your cereal. How many times have you gotten your cornflakes, sat down and gotten all comfortable, only to realise that you forgot the sugar, which is residing halfway across the room?” She started, glaring through her glasses at the larger boy.

“That’s why I have my sugar on the table? And not halfway across the room. Plus, you can’t decide how sweet you want it. You can’t decide whether or not you want it really sweet or not at all because they only have one default setting.” The other boy argued back.

“But the sugar is the best part!”

“But think of what could happen to your teeth!”

“Teeth…who cares about that!? It’s about getting that damn sugar rush in the morning!”

Meanwhile Lance remained perfectly silent, still looking at Keith with an awed yet slightly embarrassed expression.

 Keith did what he normally did when he met someone familiar while he was manning the cashier: act professional and ignore them.

“Did you find your chocolate?” The larger boy asked, simply tipping out the entire contents of their shopping basket onto the conveyor belt.

Suddenly, Lance’s nostrils flared as he pursed his lips. He leant over and scowled at Keith, pointing an accusatory finger at Keith.

“What kind of store are you running here?” He asked, scowl still present on his face.

 _A convenience store?_ Was what Keith really wanted to snark back. But because he was currently being the bigger person in this situation, he decided to go for a more professional approach.

“What?” He asked.

Lance leant in closer across the conveyor belt and poked him hard on the chest.  “The fact that you guys don’t sell _Top Deck_ bars is nothing short of _inhumane.”_  He grinned slightly when Keith reluctantly felt the corners of his mouth quirk up. “I want to speak to the manager.”

_How did I get stuck with such a weird roommate?_

Deciding to play along with Lance, Keith continued to scan the food items. He was being a professional at work.

“She’s not here. And I’ve never even heard of _Top Deck._ You’re sure you got the name right?”

_Top Deck… Isn’t that the one Allura really likes? The one with sticky nougat thing with cereal crispies?-No wait… That’s Double Decker… never mind then._

Lance cried out in mock outrage, clutching at his chest melodramatically as he draped himself over the counter. Keith looked down with the most unimpressed look he could muster. With a soft squawk as his shirt nearly caught on the conveyor belt, Lance stood back up, disbelief clearly written on his face.

“How? They’re like-They’re like the Holy Grail of chocolate bars!” he cried after a brief pause. His arms were flapping around wildly, only re-confirming Keith’s belief that Lance was secretly a chicken.

“Can’t be that good.”

“What part of _Holy Grail of Chocolate Bars_ did you not understand?!” Lance cried out in indignation, his hands shaping a cup (potentially a small toilet bowl) in the air.

If Keith was honest, he kind of forgot that there were other people who had accompanied Lance to the shop. So when the young girl cleared her throat, he couldn’t help but feel slightly embarrassed.

“What is- What is going on here?” She asked, gesturing between Keith and Lance. The larger boy stood behind her, mouth agape and eyes very confused.

“Yeah. Do you know each other? Or are you just yelling at a random clerk, because that’s not cool, man.”

Lance clears his throat, taking a small step away from the counter. “Oh. Right. This is Keith. My flatmate.”

Keith gave a slight nod, his infuriating hat falling slightly over his face. _And these people must be Lance’s friends-_

“ _That’s_ Kevin? For real?” The girl asked astounded, pushing her glasses up further as if she wasn’t quite believing the truth.

_The ones who thought I was a ghost or vampire hybrid thing._

“It’s _Keith._ And yeah, not a ghost or a vampire.” The larger boy physically recoiled back, shooting Lance a look of utter betrayal.

“You told him that?” The larger boy groaned, clapping a hand to his face in exasperation before looking back at Keith, a nervous guilty smile plastered across his face.

“It came up.”

The girl leant over the counter, a mischievous glint in her eyes and an impish grin tugging at her lips.  “Just so you know, _I_ was betting on you being a ghost.” Keith felt the corners of his lips tug slightly upwards at this, amused at the suggestion.

“Because being a ghost is _so_ much more logical than being a vampire? Yeah, right.” The larger boy scoffed. The girl opened her mouth as to rebuttal the other boy, going into depth about how _vampires_ would be illogical. Because they were, Keith knew. There was so much more evidence for the presence of ghosts and so much more logic than _vampires_. You can’t argue a point when you have no evidence.

Before the girl could go on a rant, Lance interrupted her, waving his hand flippantly. “They’re _both_ ridiculous. And you should ignore them both.” Keith hid a snort in his jumper’s sleeve as he watched the two of Lance’s friends open their mouths in indignation.

“Noted.” Twin noises of mock outrage sounded, their eyes wide with exasperation. Keith deftly packed the food into the plastic bags, reaching over to press the employer discount button.

“Hey, thanks man.” Lance says, a grin spreading across his face.

Keith could feel his face burn up, red spreading across his cheeks and his ears overheating because _wow._ Lance had a really cute smile. The corners of his mouth dimpled ever so slightly in a slightly lopsided grin, his eyes twinkled with mirth.

“What time do you finish?”

_What is up with this boy and asking questions that make it sound like he wants to go out with me?_

“Um…Later?” Keith replied, somewhat confused.

“Yeah. I mean what time? We’re going to hang out Hunk’s girlfriend’s place, you should come over. She lives pretty close by here.” Lance said patiently, nodding his head to the other boy. Hunk gave him an inviting smile.

“Oh, I-I don’t want to intrude or anything…” he mumbled out, glancing warily between Hunk and Lance. In reality, Keith was glad for the invitation since he was never really invited to events when he was younger. But his slightly introverted way of thinking led to people he didn’t like socialising. Apparently, they thought introverted always meant anti-social, or in some rare cases, misanthropy. Plus he was at work… it wasn’t like he _could_ go to an event, even if he wanted to.

“It’s not a party or anything like that, we’re just hanging.” The girl, Pidge, replies as if in answer to his train of thoughts. “Probably watch a movie and eat junk. Maybe a little bit of shit-talking if you’re lucky.”

“And Shay wouldn’t mind. _She_ was rooting for you being a vampire as well, you know?” Hunk gave a kind smile. Keith glanced over at Lance with a small amused smile, smirking at how Lance’s face suddenly turned a faint red.

“Not that we spend all our time talking about you.” Lance said hastily, hands flapping a little bit in a flustered manner. He chuckled nervously before he tried smoothing his emotions out. “Just- Yeah. Come? It’ll be fun.”

Watching a movie? Eating junk food? That sounded like his perfect way of hanging out with friends. He probably would have jumped at the chance. Too bad he was working. He frowned at the thought before shaking his head. “I finish pretty late tonight.”

Frankly all of his shifts ended late at night. But he wasn’t going to tell them that.

“Maybe next time?”

“Alright, I’m holding you to that, man.” Hunk said with a level glare, before his scowl morphed into that of a kind smile, which Keith now assumed was his default face. “See you around?”

“Yeah. Now we know you actually you exist, don’t be a stranger.” Pidge called out as she walked away, waving at Keith enthusiastically.

A chuckle bubbled out of Keith. “I’ll try.” Pidge nodded before turning her attention back to the important debate of Frosties and Cornflakes with Hunk. He watched them leave the shop with a warm smile and was about to turn back to his work.

Keyword: was _about_ to.

“Um….” Lance was still there, awkwardly looking at the floor as he shifted from foot to foot. “I guess- I guess I’ll see you at home?” The question sounded unsure, as if he still couldn’t quite believe that Keith really existed and that he might disappear at any moment.

“I guess.”

“Cool. Well-um…”Lance said slowly, before he started to look behind him, weakly pointing his thumb in the direction of Pidge and Hunk. He offered a shy wave as he turned around towards the exit. “See you then.”

“See you Lance.”

Keith watched as Lance joined his friends, smiling and playfully jabbing at him. It filled him with a sense of envy: being surrounded by friends and so happy.

  _It must be nice to not work on weekdays._

Keith shook his head, as if to focus himself. The less he whined, the faster he could go home.

He picked up the apple and took a bite of it, trying to focus himself.

Suddenly, the apple taste wasn’t as sweet as before.

* * *

 

As it turned out, even though Keith had been waking up at 5 for the past month or so, he really hadn’t gotten used to waking up at inhumane times. When Keith’s alarm sounded, Keith wanted nothing more than to smash the damn thing against the wall or slice it like a pineapple from Fruit Ninja. Its jarring blare was honestly the work of the Devil and would probably be played when the Apocalypse started.

He lay in his bed for a few minutes, contemplating deep and philosophical ideas such as:

1)  _“Do I really want to get up? Not really. I need to go to the gym though.”_

2) _“Whoever decided to invent a duvet is my saviour.”_

3) _“If I got up right now, I would have an hour and a half to get to the gym. I could easily spend another 30 minutes sleeping. Easily.”_  

4) _“As an astrophysicist, I should know this, but why is it called_ ‘light years’ _when it’s a measure of distance? Why isn’t it a peta-year? One petametre is round about one light year._

He only extracted himself from bed’s embrace when his alarm continued to ring incessantly and didn’t seem intent on stopping any time soon. He slapped the clock onto the floor and with a tired but smug smile, he fell out of bed and headed for the shower.

He stood in the shower for a while, doing nothing but enjoying the hot water sluicing down him, washing away (most) of his tiredness. Suddenly the temperature plummeted, lukewarm water cascading down.

With an ever tired sigh, Keith opened his eyes and grabbed the shampoo. He rubbed it in slowly, his mind currently going through several equations before his quiz today. He was half-way through one equation when Michael Jackson’s _Billie Jean_ slammed into his mind, brutally ripping apart any thought of physics that he previously had.

He had heard the song over the speakers in the shop last night and just like he predicted the night before, it was stuck firmly in his head. It had taken him a good hour and fifteen minutes to get to sleep that night; simply because the damn song was in his head.

 

He pinched the bridge of his nose and focused on a blank mind, a blank slate. It usually did the trick. He _needed_ this extra time to go over those equations. But the song’s chorus stuck adamantly in his head, playing in a loop over and over again.

Heavinglong-sufferinging sigh, he gave himself up to the song, humming the beginning, eventually singing the verse. As he went on, he thought he could hear the patter of the drums, the occasional glissando of some sort of string instrument and the guitar strumming. He started bopping to the imaginary time of the music, pretending to play the various instruments as he sang.

He continued with the song until he heard a muffled squeak from the door. Keith narrowed his eyes suspiciously before pulling a towel (a bright red fluffy one) from the towel rack.

“Lance?”

He stepped out of the shower and nearly tripped. He was glad that his cheeks were probably flushed from the shower because he realised another thing about Lance.

  *      He looked really cute upon waking up.



His hair was mussed, brown hair sticking out at different directions; flicking up and out, the crown of his head and the strands closest to his temple were particularly fluffy. His eyes were still heavy with sleep as Lance tried to hide a yawn, still slightly bleary and unfocused. He even still had pillow marks on one cheek, his “I’m Blue ba da dee” t-shirt rumpled adorably.

However, as cute as Lance looked upon waking up, Keith realised with belated concern that he was quiet and still. If there was one thing he knew upon coming to know Lance, it was that he was never quiet nor still. He was constantly in motion.

“Lance?” he asked with concern, taking a step forward. Only for Lance to take three abrupt steps back, as if Keith were a plague.

“Toilet.” He squeaked out, pointing behind him to the toilet.

“Oh, right.” Keith replies. Relief and another emotion flooded him.

 Disappointment? Dismay? Over what?

He side stepped over to let Lance slide past into the humid bathroom. The door banged shut, and with a nonchalant shrug, Keith walked over to his room to get ready for the day.

Just as he was about to leave the house, Lance stalked out of the bathroom, water dripping from his hair near his face.

“Oh. Hey.” Keith said, giving an awkward wave at Lance. Lance returned with an equally awkward smile of his own.

“Hey.” A look of concern flashed across his face, as if suddenly realising that Keith was fully clothed and heading towards the door. His lips pursed, brows furrowing in. “Where’re you going?” He asked, cocking his head to the side.

Keith shrugged, shouldering his rucksack as he tugged his coat hanging on a coat rack. “I’m late.”

Lance gave a confused look, his eyebrows quirking up.

“Late?”

“Gym. Work. The library. The usual.”

“But it’s a _Saturday!_ ” he cried out with indignation, pointing at the window. The street outside was winter-quiet, the wind rustling the sparse autumn leaves on the trees. “And it’s still dark!”

“You get- “

“You get used to it? Yeah, yeah. I remember.” Lance cut in, crossing his arms across his chest and giving Keith an unimpressed look. He sighed wearily, running a hand through his already mussed up hair. “What time did you get in last night?”

Keith was part way through lacing up his shoes and had to crane his neck up to properly look at Lance. He looked up, shooting Lance a wary look. His question was dripping with faux innocence, like a child who had claimed to not have eaten the cookie from the cookie jar only to be rewarded another cookie for resisting temptation. “What?”

“I got in pretty late last night- game night at Hunk and Pidge’s- and you weren’t here. I was just wondering.” Lance flashed an easy smile, but underneath it, concern was clearly written.

Keith thought back at what time he came back, scrunching his face in concentration as he looked towards the ceiling.

“Um…two? Maybe three? Three thirty.” He said with finality.

“So you’ve had, what, three hours tops?” Keith half expected Lance to burst out in frustration and go full out mother hen mode, with mandatory flapping and then start dragging him by the collar into his room. Instead Lance sighed in defeat and said “That’s really intense.”

“A little.” A small smile creeped on his face as he shuffled towards the corridor. “I should probably get going.”

“Oh yeah. Right. I’ll-I’ll see you around.”

“I guess. See you, Lance.”

Keith closed his eyes and sighed loudly as soon as the door closed with a definite click. He savoured how the crisp air whirled around him, waking him up a little bit more. Opening his eyes, he came to see another brilliant sunrise, hues of fuchsia and blush red blending in midnight blue. The moon was barely visible against the glowing horizon.

_A start to another day._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also I just realised that Popo can mean police... It's not that in this. It's supposed to be Mandarin for maternal grandmother, as in 婆婆。Don't worry, the girl isn't randomly calling the police on her grandmother.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentines! 
> 
> Thank you so much for all the comments, kudos and reads. It made my day to see that people enjoyed reading this and it really motivated me to continue writing as quickly as possible but school has been really annoying.
> 
> When the time comes, I recommend you listen to the song. It adds to the chaos of everything. Also Lance speaks Spanish in this chapter so I will be indicating it as shown.  
> << spanish speaking>>
> 
> The plot belongs to safra and voltron most definitely does not belong to me.

For the longest time, Keith didn’t see Lance after the awkward morning walk in. Food was still kept in the fridge for him, but as to the chef who made it: No-one.

If Keith didn’t know any better, he would have thought that Lance was just a figment of his own tired imagination and he was cooking while sleepwalking. Which would have been an ever bigger miracle than Jesus walking on water.

It was three days after the Awkward Morning Walk in Incident ™ when Keith realised something. The thought hit him hard during one of his many sessions at the library, his head buried deep in a thick and yellowed textbook.

_I haven’t done anything for Lance for all the dinners he has made for me._

Lance had become his in-house saviour, preventing him from starving (Keith’s longest without food was about a day and a half, back in the first year when he was desperately trying to study for the grades he needed- It hadn’t been pleasant at all). He had made a variety of delicious meals yet Keith realised with a belated horror that he hadn’t done anything for Lance.

The thought jerked him out of his concentration, startling a gasp from Keith. His knee violently whacked against the table, causing him to soon lose his balance on his chair and fall off.

Keith yelped as he landed hard on the ground, arms windmilling and legs flailing. Ethel, the elderly librarian, peeked out from the corner, eyebrows raised in worry, mouthing an “are you okay?” 

For someone who seemed perpetually Grinch-like, she seemed to hold a certain friendliness towards Keith. She always saved him a copy of the textbooks that he needed, extending out the deadlines when he didn’t have time to return them and if he was lucky, smuggled a pack of peanuts during an especially intense revision period.

With a brisk thumbs-up, Keith stood up and stuffed the books away, sheets creasing as he unceremoniously shoved them into the already cramped bag.

 _I need to do something._ Keith thought as he walked out of library with determination in his eyes and air of urgency in his step.

But the world _apparently_ had something against him. Because as soon as this resolution came to mind, he soon became swamped with his dissertation deadline. Papers were scrunched up and chucked away, pencils were bitten on and his computer crashed several times, much to his horror. The small budding interaction that Keith had with Lance had now reverted to what it had been a few days prior.

He could only assume that Lance was going through the same process as he was, if the lack of food and awfully drawn cats on Post-it notes was anything to go by. Keith now relied solely on crisps, biscuits, Pocky sticks and raw instant noodles to act as his meals. It had only been a few days and he was already missing Lance’s food.

Once the heat of the deadlines had died down, Keith decided that enough was enough. He would repay Lance and they would be even.

With the groceries in hand, he swiftly unlocked the door and entered into the darkened flat. Lance's shoes had been dumped near the door, causing Keith to nearly trip on them. After arranging Lance’s shoes in an orderly fashion by the door, Keith too took his shoes off and headed to the kitchen area.

Keith realised belatedly that Lance must have been back quite early, seeing that it was only 7:15 in the evening and yet he could hear Lance’s snores coming from his room.

With a flourish from his back pocket, he quickly dialled into the phone and pressed the device to his ear, waiting for the rings to cease.

“Hello?”

“Shiro- I’m going to need your help.”

* * *

 

“And you’ve put the stock in?”

“Yup”

“And it’s on medium heat?”

“Yup.”

“So now you just have to wait a bit.”

Keith eyed at the risotto darkly, as if daring it to go wrong. This one would be the one. _This one_ wouldn’t burn, like the other 6 attempts that he tried. It wouldn’t burn like paper in a fire and it would taste _amazing_ and it would be _fucking perfect._

“So what’s up with you? Why are you suddenly so interested in cooking? Last time I checked, you were the one who said to Allura “This is _Pajeong,_ a type of pancake _…_ It has… Umm…Uhhh-I don’t know what’s in it. I just kinda eat it.” While we were at a _Korean_ restaurant.” Shiro asked. Keith could just hear his smirk on the other side of the phone. Taking the phone off from his ear, he glared down at his phone, as if Shiro was actually there to see his glare.

“Maybe I realised that you can’t be a responsible adult without knowing how to cook.” Keith retorted back in a deadpan fashion, leaning against the kitchen counter. Shiro snorted, trying to stifle his laughter.

“Says the person who literally cannot operate the washing machine.”

Had Shiro been there besides him in real life, Keith’s glare would have burnt him alive.

“I’m hanging up….”

“But joking aside, honestly. What’s up with the cooking?” Shiro asked, a slight concern colouring his tone. Keith heaved a long suffering sigh.

“Well you see, there’s this guy-“

“Keith… am I hearing this correctly?” Shiro asked, suddenly very intrigued. “Is my little bro being _social!_ Good for you! I keep telling you need to take a break! I need to tell Allura! She’d be so happy! Wait a minute… Please tell me it isn’t a random person from online… cause I’ve told you this before, but it’s not safe!”

Taking another deep and long suffering sigh, Keith pinched the bridge of his nose as his brother babbled on, his so called ‘dad traits’ surfacing. But he waited patiently for his brother to finish ranting about the advantages of being more social and taking less of a work load, as well as being careful of who he interacts with.

“But I think you know this already. So, who’s the lucky guy?”

“Shiro, just let me finish my sentence, goddammit!” Keith half yelled down the phone, trying to keep as quiet as possible in order to not wake Lance up. “It’s not like that.”

“So…. You haven’t found a boyfriend?” Shiro’s voice suddenly fell, bewilderment and confusion taking over what once was excitement.

“NO!”

“Then… So why are you cooking?”

Keith pulled away from the phone, before hitting his head multiple times on the fridge, an exasperated growl escaping from him. “That’s what I was trying to get to, dumbass, before you kept interrupting me.” Keith replied after a while through gritted teeth. Before Shiro could launch into his defence, Keith cut him off. He left the kitchen and sat down on the sofa, gesturing animatedly even though there was no one to see it.

“My roommate, Lance, has been cooking all my dinners for the past month or so. I haven’t done anything for him and I thought it was only right that we even it out.” Keith huffed out somewhat petulantly, rolling his eyes at Shiro.

Keith could imagine Shiro’s look as understanding overtook his features, how his mouth would hang ajar while his eyes widened almost comically.

“That’s… really nice of you, Keith.” Shiro sounded almost impressed, as if he didn’t know what to make of this news. “Must be a nice guy if you decided to cook for him. And, don’t get me wrong, you’re skilled in many things: chess, motor cycling, hand to hand combat, darts and whatnot. But did you _have_ to repay the favour by doing the one thing that you truly suck at?”

However, before Keith could snap back, a shrill beep resounded inside the small house and the smell of acrid burning filled Keith’s nose.

“Keith…. What did you _do_?” Shiro asked gravely when the first beeps sounded.

_Shit_

“Shiro…..It’s burning! Oh my god! IT'S BURNING!” Keith cried as he catapulted himself back into the kitchen. The small room was brimming WITH black smoke, closing down on him and suffocating him. Choking, he waded through the smoke as if it were an ocean, his nose pressed into his sleeve as he tried to filter the clean air that he was getting.

In desperation, he clawed at the window latch, but the smoke was overwhelmingly strong. His fingers fumbled a few times before the window latch finally swung back. With a harsh yank, Keith pulled the window up, sucking the smoke from the kitchen.

But there was still too much.

Grabbing two towels, he started waving the smoke in the direction of window, guiding it like a dog herding sheep into the pen. In this case, it was very accurate representation of how he felt: constantly barking at the sheep who were too dumb to get anything, only for them to slip away from his grasp, just like how the smoke refused to leave through the window.

“How?! I read out all the instructions perfectly!” Shiro exclaimed. “Did you mess something up?”

“No.” Keith gritted out as he balanced the phone on his shoulder, flapping his towels like an idiot. “No I did _exactly_ what you told me to do!”

“You were only supposed to leave it for 14 minutes!” Shiro groaned, his voice exasperated. Keith narrowed his eyes, suspiciously looking towards his phone.

“ _You didn’t say that!”_ Keith hissed into the phone, rapidly beating the towels.

“I definitely said 14 minutes. Well… 14 minutes or so.”

“ _You didn’t!_ You said 40 minutes. _40_! You  _did_ — Shiro, you  _did_. Shiro, you did, Shiro.  _Shiro_.  _Shir_ —  _Takashi_   _I swear to G—“_

 _“Keith?”_ another bewildered voice sounded behind him.

Keith whipped around and his neck cracked with the sudden movement, phone nearly slipping from his shoulder. Lance was standing in the doorframe, his stance poised for action. He looked surprised for the most part, but Keith could tell that Lance was secretly amused by this whole ordeal but also slightly annoyed.

Keith quickly slid in front of the stove, hiding the incriminating evidence and winced before plastering a (what he hoped was a casual but probably ended up looking a bit constipated) smile on his face.

_Quick! Say something!_

“Uh-“

_Wow. Real smooth talker, aren’t you?_

Lance sauntered easily into the kitchen, climbing onto the kitchen counter to reach the fire alarm as Keith grappled with his phone and dealt with his infuriating brother on the other side.

“Shiro. I’ll call you back.”

“Is that Lance?”

“Yeah.”  
“Roommate Lance?”

“Yeah.” A sudden peal of laughter echoed from the phone.

“I can’t believe you tried cooking for this guy! This is brilliant!”

“Don’t laugh….” Keith hissed under his breath as watched Lance climb down from the counter.

“Allura! Listen to this!” Shiro continued, his tone slightly distant as he pulled away from the phone to talk to his fiancée.

“Stop laughing! I’m hanging up!” Keith gritted out in a rush.

“ _So_ -“ Lance said cheerfully, mirth bright in his eyes. His eyes roved behind Keith and smirked knowingly. “Everything alright?”

_Absolutely not._

“Everything’s good.” Keith lied, smiling tightly at the Latino boy.

“Uh _huh_ ….” Lance responded unconvinced, taking a few long strides to peer over Keith’s shoulder to see the evidence of his crimes.

“What was that supposed to be?” He asked as he pulled back, looking Keith in the eye and shooting him a genuinely confused look.

Keith quickly looked behind at his risotto attempts before rubbing his neck ruefully. He could feel his cheeks heat up in embarrassment and he shot Lance a sheepish smile.

“Risotto…”He said quietly, hoping that Lance hadn’t heard him.

“Why?”

_Dammit, he heard._

“Umm… Dinner?”

“No. I mean, why were you trying to cook it?” Lance asked, pointing to the rock hard thing that was cemented to the pot. He eyed the risotto suspiciously before turning his whole hearted attention back to Keith. With an intense stare like that, Keith couldn’t help but feel like he was being interrogated, the light blinding Keith and compelling him to tell the truth.

“I felt bad…” he mumbled, poking at the risotto mournfully. Unlike his previous attempts, the rice grains seemed a little…softer. So… rock hard instead of titanium hard. That was an improvement.

“Why?”

_Do I have to spell it out for this idiot?_

With a frustrated huff, Keith looked at Lance doggedly in the eye, not wavering. “You’ve been cooking for both of us. Yeah- I never bought that ‘I made too much excuse” He said and shot Lance a smug smirk as Lance quickly looked away bashfully and whistled a tuneless melody.

“So _you_ tried to cook for us?” Lance finished, holding up a hand as if he already knew the entire story. It held a slightly incredulous tone but to Keith, it sounded almost belittling.

Keith raised his chin and glared at Lance, as if daring him to laugh at him. He sent a silent threat to Lance with his eyes, lips pursed in a tight line.

_Laugh at me and I will punch you. Or at least, chuck this pan at your face._

Thankfully, it seemed Lance got the message nice and clearly, eyes widening before he plastered a toothy smile and even _fluttered_ his damn eyelashes.

“I see. Can I...Can I just ask—“

“What?” Suspicion crept up in Keith, settling in his stomach like a bad dinner.

“What did you _do_?” He cried out incredulously, his hands flailing at the pot. Chicken Lance had returned.

Keith watched as Lance stared at the risotto, before proceeding to turn his head 90° to the right, as if he were in an art museum and was struggling to find the hidden message in the painting.

“I don’t know?” Keith replied, exasperation and a hint of slight amusement trickling into his words. Maybe it had been the stock? Maybe the rice was extra flammable? Or potentially it was the little bit (read: accidentally too much) of wine that he had poured in for more flavour. Lance glanced up from his investigation and shot a dubiously flat look. “My brother was feeding me instructions over the phone”

“Hmmm…”

“But he’s not the best at cooking either-“Keith hastily added.

“I never would have guessed.” Lance muttered under his breath as he prodded the risotto.

“And this is the result?” Keith gestured weakly at the catastrophe that was his risotto. 

Lance warily picked up a pot and stared at it intently before a snort erupted from him. The snort soon turned into full out laughter. Keith found himself smiling at Lance, the corners of his lips pulled up slightly. 

“This was actually my best attempt.” Keith said, his lips tugging further. He stepped aside for Lance to get to the sink and he watched him with unconcealed curiosity. Grabbing the wire sponge, Lance viciously scrubbed at the black paste on the pan, his scowl growing with frustration as the black cement refused to budge.

“Use water from the kettle.” Keith said frankly, peering over Lance’s shoulder. At the sound of his voice, Lance whipped around, eyes wide, as if Keith had just frightened him.

“Do you want to burn my hands as well as the pot?”

With a chuckle, Keith pushed past Lance and turned on the hot water tap.

“Hot water works better.” Keith assured, looking Lance dead in the eye.

“Yeah? Well I suppose you would know about that, wouldn’t you?” Lance admitted with a shrug. Keith raised an eyebrow before bumping his shoulder with his own.

“Hilarious.” He replied in a deadpan manner. “You should leave it to soak.”

“Speaking from experience again?” Lance asked inquisitively, eyebrow quirked up. Unbidden, memories of his cooking experiences floated to the surface of his mind. Each memory flashed past his mind’s eye briefly: the time his dumpling caught on fire in Home-Ec. The other time when he poured sugar into the gravy when he tried helping out during Christmas. The time he accidentally left the stir fry for too long, not only burning it but rendering it impossible to get off. The time he set his toast on fire.

“Sadly”

The two fell into a companionable silence after that, with Keith assuming Lance’s impossible duty of washing the pots, handing them over when they were done to Lance, who dried the pots expertly.

Keith had always been called out for being quite brash with his words, often too sharp-tongued for the hoi polloi. But he found that Lance was matching his words with words of equal bite, words perfectly countering his own.  He took all of Keith’s taunts and effortlessly played it back to him, with little hesitation between each retort. It was comfortable being around Lance. They worked in sync, silently washing the dishes and drying them, as if they’ve known each other their entire lives, and not just two days.

“You want pizza?” Lance asked once he had finished drying the dishes, carding his way through a variety of different take-away leaflets to cuisines he had never even thought about before. He started rattling different cuisines off the top of his head, counting each one on his fingers before Keith decided to cut him short, agreeing to pizza.

“Uh-we’re gonna-Eat here?” Keith asked, pointing unsure at the floor beneath him.

“Unless you’ve got work or something?” Lance replied nonchalantly, raising a brow.

“Not tonight. I was gonna go to the library for a bit and –“

Suddenly, something changed in the light in Lance’s eyes: hardening like ice as Lance strode towards Keith, his steps deliberate and brisk.

Looping an arm around Keith, Lance smiled at Keith, his grin wickedly wide. Keith gulped as he eyed Lance with caution.

“Nope.” He said, tugging Keith even closer to him. He gestured to the space between them; Lance’s grin was still as sharp as a shark. “We’re going to bond.” With a yelp, Lance dragged Keith over to the sofa.

* * *

"Why is she using a lifeline for _that?”_ Keith exclaimed in outrage, pointing his pizza slice decisively at the small television in front of them. The cheese threatened to plummet to the ground, hanging precariously off the tip. In the near future, he would probably end up mourning the loss, but at that moment, Keith couldn’t care less.

It’s was one of those questions that made Keith really question humanity’s ingenuity and made Keith lose faith in humanity altogether. He could label the great: Galileo, Newton, da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Stephen Hawking and so many others (who weren’t just in the science department), that had brought humanity up to where it was today and had taken the great leaps needed to push the human race forward. Keith wasn’t expecting everybody to be geniuses like that. But this was a simple question!

_How is it that members within the same species have such varying degrees of common sense!?_

“I would like to use my 50/50 lifeline.” The woman said solemnly at Chris Tarrant. Within seconds, two answers for the question ‘how many moons does Mercury have?’ disappeared. Keith let loose an indignant squawk as the woman _actually_ debated over whether Mercury had one or zero moons.

As the woman pondered about the answer, Keith bit into the pizza slice viciously, gnawing at it in exasperation at the ignorant woman.

 _“_ Oh no. I’m in a real pickle now… Which is the right answer? And I’ve used all my lifelines to get this far…” The woman asked, cupping her chin in thought.

“My god! She’s just drawing out this stupid question! Use that brain of yours, Lisa!” He shouted at the screen, clapping his free hand to his forehead.

“Not everyone is in their third year of an astrophysics degree.” Lance replied calmly. (How he managed to remain calm in the face of something so outrageously stupid was honestly a mystery to Keith.)

 _“_ Who _doesn’t_ know Mercury doesn’t have a moon?” Keith asked.

“Oh…Really?” A look of contemplation crosses his face, cocking his head to the side, as if this was a new fact to him and was still processing it.

“Lance!” Keith cried out, his voice jumping up an octave or so in disbelief. “How do you _not_ \- You’re kidding?” Keith’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as he noticed the corner of Lance’s lip curve up in an amused smile.

 _“_ Yep-“ Lance laughed, stretching out his body before slumping further into the sofa, kicking up his feet onto the coffee table. “Well, I knew it was either one or none.”

With a scoff, Keith leaned over to the coffee table to grab another slice of pizza. “That’s just as bad as not knowing at all.” He grumbled before looking at the screen.

Lance chuckled and bumped his knees against Keith’s. “Not everyone’s an astrophysics student.” To which Keith just gave a wry smile.

Picking at the olives on his pizza, Keith watched as Lisa the stupid contestant got the answer right and received another load of money. “It’s general knowledge.” He stated matter of factly, sniffing slightly disdainfully at the woman.

“See, she used her lifeline for an easy question and now she can’t use it for this one.” Keith said, a look of confusion and exasperation crossed his features as the question ‘ _Nephelococcygia’ is the practice of doing what_?’ came on.

Lance glanced at the screen and _scoffed._ _“_ This _is_ an easy question. The easiest one so far.”

Keith whipped round to face Lance, eyes wide with confusion. He quickly scanned Lance’s face, to see if there was any sign of bluffing. An aloof smug expression remained fixed on his face.

“Alright.” Keith shifted in his seat to face Lance, who had casually thrown his arm across the couch. “Without looking at the options, what’s the answer?”

A glint of challenge arose in Lance’s eyes, his lips curving upwards. “You think I don’t know?

Keith shrugged. “You’re being _suspiciously_ evasive for such an easy answer.” The taunt flowed off his tongue easily, a trait that had often gotten him into fights when he was still in the foster care system. The glint in Lance’s eyes increased, as he stood up to the challenge. An unspoken “Well, do you?” hung like electric in the air. With an even larger and even more mischievous smirk, Lance responded by leaning in.

“It’s when you find shapes in the clouds.” He said simply, a smug grin still present as he flopped back onto the couch, still grinning as if he had won something. With a quick glance to the TV, Keith realised that the answer was indeed ‘finding shapes in the clouds’.

 “Huh…” he muttered, frowning a little at screen before he resumed to his original position on the other side of the couch. “How’d you know that? Do you do a degree in cloud watching?”

Lance laughed, and explained how he knew. “Cloud watching is fun, you know?” He said wistfully, his face turned to the TV but not really seeing what was on the screen, as if he was imagining himself in a field, feeling the soft breeze ruffle his hair and the sunlight on his skin.

“What do you do? For fun?” Lance asked, turning his head to face Keith.

Keith paused for a while, thinking about what he enjoyed. It had been so long since he had done anything for _fun_ _,_ it was surprisingly difficult recalling what he had previously done. But it wasn’t just the prolonged absence of hobbies that made him think hard: it was whether or not he could risk divulging personal things to someone who was still technically a stranger without being judged. Too many times it had happened in the orphanage and it was something that Keith did not want to happen anytime soon.

_I like karaoke._

_No._

_I like conspiracies._

_Definitely not._

_I like to stargaze._

_Maybe._

_I like runs at night._

_Is that even a hobby?_

“I don’t really-“ He cut himself out and bit at his lower lip. “Study?”

Lance pulled a face of mild disgust and recoiled slightly, as if he were met with a particularly rancid smell. “No.”

“Gym?”

Lance continued to pull a face of abjection, his shoulders sagging in dismay. “Keith.” He whined out with increasing chagrin.

“Sleep?” Keith shrugged hopelessly as Lance shook his head in bewilderment. _“_ _Ugh._ That is no way to live, man. You’re not living the whole student experience.”

It was a small off-hand comment, Keith was aware, but he couldn’t help but fume. Keith knew what many students thought university would be like: new classes, new friends and most of all, freedom. He counted himself fortunate enough that he had managed to get this scholarship in the first place and how generous Shiro’s family had been. They weren’t _poor_ _,_ per se, but they weren’t as well off as some of the other students that came. He had only ever been allowed to go on two or three abroad school trips because that was all they could afford.

Keith couldn’t waste this opportunity, not with the stake of receiving that degree at the end of his university career. He wouldn’t waste his parents' generosity for a wild night filled with alcohol and parties. He couldn’t.

“I’m just trying to get my degree, Lance.” He responded curtly, his lips pressed into a thin line.

“Yeah- But nobody said you’re not allowed to have fun while doing it.” Lance said slowly, a cautious look creeping on his face and an apologetic light in his eyes. Keith felt the tension bleed out of his shoulders a little bit, and blood stopped beating in his ears. And as much as retort back, Keith found that he couldn’t.

Because everything Lance said was true.

“You should go out with me.”

_Wait-WHAT!?_

Keith spluttered, his cheeks heating up like a furnace.

_Again! What is up with this guy and asking questions that make it sound like he wants to go out with me?!_

“-And Hunk and Pidge.” Lance interjected after a pause. He laughed nervously, glancing away from Keith and his burning face. “We’re not really into hardcore clubbing or anything like that if it’s not your thing. But yeah-“ Keith released a breath he didn’t even know he was holding as Lance shrugged nonchalantly.

“You should come hang out with us one night. Have some fun. Let loose. Act like a student and not like a fifty year old.” Lance glanced at Keith, smirking as Keith snorted indignantly.

 _“_ I _don’t_ act like a fifty year old.”

 _“_ True. Sixty? Seventy?” Lance questioned, his playful smirk still on his face as he cupped his chin in thought, side glancing at Keith.

“Lance-“ Keith growled out in warning.

“You’re right” He said flippantly “ _Definitely_ eighty _-_ _Rude!”_ He called out in mock outrage, narrowly missing a flurry of projectile pillow missiles that were launched at his face.

“Here I am-“ he said, whilst dodging the barrage of pillows, a slight wheeze in his voice “out of the goodness of my heart, trying to extend an olive branch and _yo-Keith!”_ he wailed out when a pillow successfully hit him in the face. Keith openly smirked as Lance half slid off the sofa, his long legs thrown up in a tangle.

“What was that? I didn’t quite hear you there.” Keith said with a deliberately exaggerated candied smile, peering down at the heap on the floor that was Lance.

With a scowl, Lance clambered up the sofa, but not without purposefully directing a well-aimed kick at Keith’s ankles.

“Ha ha.” His voice dripped with dry sarcasm as he rolled his eyes. “Back to what I was saying before I was rudely _attacked-“_ Keith looked away, innocently admiring the living room as he whistled a random tune.

“Come hang out with us one night. It’ll be fun.” Lance smiled brightly at him, causing a slight blush to break out over the bridge of Keith’s nose.

 _Lance has a really nice smile._ His mind supplied unhelpfully.

_Shut up._

His mind was suddenly filled with the smell of cooking, the sound of laughter and the occasional beep of a console or the shuffle of cards. In his mind’s eye, he was seated in a circle, openly laughing with Lance and his friends from the convenience store and Keith felt a pull in his chest, a longing for the company of friends. It’s tempting….

But the imagery of work flooded his mind suddenly, the piles of paperwork still to be done and the textbooks still to be highlighted. It crammed into every nook and cranny of his brain, and suddenly, it was as Keith was choking with a lack of oxygen, barely keeping afloat as he treads the metaphorical sea. He envisioned faces of sorrow, of anger and most of all, disappointment.

 _That can’t happen. It_ won’t _happen…_

 _“Nobody said you’re not allowed to have fun while doing it.”_ Lance’s voice echoed in his head and Keith sighed, playing with the hem of his jumper as he worried his lower lip, debating on how to convey what he just thought.

Keith looked up to the expectant Lance. “ _Maybe_ _.”_

Lance’s face dropped slightly at his hesitant response, but it quickly vanished, making Keith think it was just the trick of his mind. With a slightly more determined look, he looked at Lance directly and with an air of finality, he repeated his statement solemnly.

“Maybe.”

* * *

 

_Maybe if I looked this way….Nope… It still looks like chicken scratch._

Keith narrowed his eyes at the piece of paper in his hands, cocking his head to the side as if to decipher the code that was his notes, which incidentally, he had written when he was falling asleep in the convenience store.

_I think it says velocity? But why did I write ‘ET took all my sherbet?’ I must be more tired than I thought._

With a grimace, Keith tore another piece of lined paper from the pad and began the notes anew, the text book placed at an angle so that he could man the cashier while looking at the text book.

“Keith, you look exhausted. Go home already.” A man uttered sympathetically as he unloaded his basket onto the conveyor belt. Stifling a yawn, Keith scanned every piece and shrugged.

“It’s fine. I’ve gotten used to it.” He mumbled back, his tone automatic and toneless. The man quirked an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, before he hauled his bag over his shoulder and left.

He leant back in his chair, pressing his palms onto his strained and tired eyes before he dragged his hands down his face, pulling a long suffering face.

 _Mother Nature must really be trying to get me…_ Keith thought spitefully, glaring at the fluorescent lights that left yellow imprints in his vision. Keith thought back to his last interaction with Lance and felt a pang of disappointment with himself.

He had promised himself that he would take the time to relax more with Lance and his friends and maybe even hang out with them more. Except as it turned out, the only other employee was down with some sort of winter vomit bug _(_ _It’s not even winter! She has no excuse!_ _)_ and lo and behold, he had to take up her shifts as well as his own because Sendak just bathed in his misery and couldn’t be fucking arsed to hire another person.

With another long suffering sigh, he returned to his work, noting about experimental high energy astrophysics. But the drone of the cooling systems and the general heat of the shop wasn’t helping with his concentration. Every few seconds, his head lolled forward and the grip on his pen slipped, causing squiggles of unintelligible words. Keith shook his head and pinched himself to stay awake, and even tried hitting his thigh and biting the inside of his cheek, but his eyelids continued getting heavier and heavier, the fog of sleep seeping through the edges. It felt like he had been plunged underwater, the sounds merging into each other and fading into darkness to create disjointed sounds and conversations.

“Ahem!” someone cleared their throat, irritation laced in his voice. Keith blearily looked up, his vision still clouded with the haziness of sleep as he scanned the items and packaged them into the multiple bags that the customer brought like a pro, before he continued with his (attempted) note taking.

_Don’t fall…. Asleep…. I forbid you. I- I- Notes! Don’t fall…._

“Heyyyyyy, roomie. Fancy seeing you here.”

And just like that, any hint of sleep that he once had evaporated as Keith honed in on the voice. His eyes locked onto to a familiar faced Latino man, a lopsided smile spread across his face. He watched as Lance draped himself over the counter, quirking an eyebrow as an amused smile threatened to pull at his lips.

“I work here, Lance.” Keith made a face as he tried to suppress his yawn, but to little avail. Lance watched him with an amused but mostly concerned look. “It’d be more surprising if you didn’t see me here.”

“Not necessarily. I don’t know your schedule.” Lance replied with a shrug, his face that of innocence.

“Well, I’m here most nights.” This time, Keith didn’t even bother hiding his yawn.

“Don’t you get bored?” Lance looked round the shop and grimaced. With a dismayed look, Lance looked at Keith incredulously, a hint of sorrow in his blue blue eyes. “Don’t you get _lonely?”_

Keith shrugged as he flipped the page of his textbook. “Gives me more time to study.”

Lance opened his mouth as if to retort something back, but his mouth closed in a firm line, a frown still etched on his face as he no doubt saw the stacks of unread textbooks behind Keith.

“Are you a robot?”

_Is this his attempt at joking? Because if it is, this is a poor effort._

“Am I- Am I a what?”

“A robot.” Keith narrowed his eyes at Lance suspiciously as a shit-eating grin spread across his face. “You know like-“

“I know what a robot is, Lance.” Keith interrupted impatiently.

Lance stroked his chin, as if he were a sagely old man with years more of experience than Keith. “You’re self-aware. Good to see your programmers thought of everything.”

_Why have I ended up with the weirdest room-mate in history?_

“Lance…”

_But then again, he and his friends did think that I was a vampire ghost thing…. Why am I not surprised…_

_“_ You’re ridiculous.” Keith finished with resignation, already giving up trying to unravel the mystery that was his room-mate.

“And you still haven’t proved you’re not a robot. The evidence is _overwhelming_ _,_ you know.” Lance said with a shrug, before he gently prodded Keith on the shoulder.

Keith raised an eyebrow in a mixture of amusement and exasperation. “What evidence, Lance?”

Lance held his chin high, a smug look crossing his face as he settled himself onto the counter, knocking down several sweet stands to the floor as he made himself comfortable.

“Get off of the counter.” Keith hissed, cautiously looking around him just in case a customer or someone walked in on the mess.

“Firstly-“ Lance drawled out, holding up a finger.

“You have a list?”

_You are a very sad, strange little man if you can make a list about how your room-mate is a robot…You have my pity._

“Of course. Firstly, your handwriting.” He leaned over the counter, tapping at the notes that Keith was currently compiling.

With a frown, Keith looked at his notes. If you ignored the squiggly lines, his handwriting was not bad at all. At least it was legible.

“What’s wrong with my handwriting?”

“What’s not wrong with it?” he continued to tap at the added notes in the margins. “Is that even English? Are you writing in hieroglyphics? Maybe an alphabet too advanced for humanity that only robots can understand?”

Keith quickly slammed his notebook shut, moving his book to the side as he eyed Lance. “Are you always like this?” he questioned in a resigned but amused tone.

“Yes. Yes I am.” Lance replied solemnly with a deadpan face.

“Amazing.”

“Secondly-“ Lance checked another finger off, waving the two raised fingers in Keith’s face. “You can’t cook.”

“A lot of people can’t cook. There’s an entire publishing industry that relies on that.” Keith retorted back. He could feel his mouth quirk up more with amusement.

“True.” Lance granted with a shrug. “And I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt when it came to your-“ Lance paused as he struggled to find the right word, before a Cheshire cat grin spread across his face; smug and playful. “ _Abysmal-“_

“I wouldn’t call it abysmal.”

Lance cocked his head to the side, innocently watching Keith’s reactions. “Atrocious? Disgraceful? Hopeless? Deplorable?” He grinned easily, showing all of his white teeth. “Feel free to stop me when I say one you like.” He drawled out, admiring his nails.

Keith smirked as he elbowed Lance in the thigh, startling an alarmed squawk from him. “Just keep it at abysmal.”

“So there I was, willing to give you the benefit of the doubt when it came to your abysmal cooking skills. Maybe you’re just not good at it. I can understand that. But _then_ the whole ‘risotto’ mess happened and I realised that only a robot who has no real need to eat could _ever_ mess up a meal that badly.” He opened his blue eyes and shot him a self-satisfied smirk.

What happened next, Keith would blame it on the fact that he was tired and would have found _anything_ funny, and not the fact that he honestly liked talking to his room-mate and found his weird sense of humour oddly endearing. For the second time that they met, Keith burst out laughing: a hearty one that hurt his stomach.

Keith also belatedly noticed that Lance was gaping at him, eyes wide and mouth hanging ajar. But, again, he just attributed it to tiredness.

“I know I’m funny. But I didn’t think I was _that_ funny.” Lance mused, a small smile tugging at his lips as he stared at Keith somewhat fondly.

“You’re ridiculous.” Keith articulated, playfully jabbing at Lance’s thigh.

“Do you want me to finish my list or not?”

_It’s not finished yet?! Lance, you really need a new hobby._

“Oh, of _course._ I can’t wait to hear what you’ve got.” Keith replied with a chuckle, a taunting smirk spreading across his face.

“Are you sure? Are you sure you can handle it? I don’t want your robot brain to short circuit when it gets a bit too much for you.” He asked, his eyebrows wiggling playfully. Keith shot him an unimpressed stare, garnering a chuckle from Lance.

“Alright. Drumroll please.” He announced with a flourish, his arms flung wide open in a pose. Keith looked around him awkwardly, waiting for Lance to continue with his list. Lance shot him a pointed look, nodding at the counter.

 _Oh… You want me to_ actually _drumroll…_

“Unbelievable.” He muttered under his breath and began to grudgingly tap against the counter, in time with the clock behind him. It wasn’t so much a drumroll as it was a sombre beat in a funeral march. Lance shot him an aghast look, before it smoothed out into his usual smirk.

“And thirdly-” he announced, pointing a finger at him with a flourish before he gently bopped Keith on the nose. “Because _you don’t like me.”_ Suddenly his voice dropped to a petulant whisper, and as he sat back up, Keith noticed that Lance was pouting.

“I-I _what_? I don’t like you?”

That was…. Unexpected. Keith had thought that the previous encounters had been enough to establish that Keith, did in fact, like Lance and enjoyed his company. He thought that that was pretty obvious. Evidently not, though.

“Well _duh-”_ Lance elaborated. Although his face said he was calm and light-hearted, there was an underlying tone of bitterness in his tone; one that Keith decided did not sit well with the Latino man at all.

“Anyone who can resist my charm is _definitely_ not entirely human, so-”

“Who said I don’t like you?” Keith articulated impatiently, effectively cutting Lance off. He wasn’t angry with Lance. Not in the slightest. He was just frustrated: frustrated that no matter how hard he _tried_ , still no one understood him. He was also confused because heck! He thought he made it very clear where Lance stood.

_I haven’t punched you in the face, so that means I don’t hate you. And I haven’t given you death glares, which means that I don’t distrust you. I thought we had bonded…_

But he was mostly saddened. But the reason for this sadness, Keith couldn’t tell you.

“I mean…”Lance fumbled for his words, a frown marring his expression. “It’s kind of obvious, man.”

(Keith ignores the slight twinge of sadness that settles in his heart and the lump in his throat at Lance’s words.)

“How?”

“I don’t know!” Lance cried out defensively, crossing his arms over his chest as he continued to pout. “Just-It’s _obvious.”_

“You can’t keep saying that if you’re not going to explain-” Keith huffed out impatiently. He looked Lance doggedly in the eyes, lips pressed firmly together. “I don’t not like you.”

A quiet “Oh” escapes from Lance’s mouth, his eyes wide. Before he had the chance to reply back, a customer pushed her way past to the counter. She eyed Lance with confusion in her eyes and Keith quickly plastered a smile.

As he scanned the items, his mind reeled back to what Lance could have possibly meant.

_What am I doing that makes him think I don’t like him? Is it because I seem unapproachable? What am I doing?!_

Keith dared to glance at Lance, to find him pulling a similar face to what he, no doubt, was pulling too. His lips were puckered in concentration, and a frown was etched on his forehead.

“I don’t not like you.” Keith muttered out as soon as the customer left the store. He turned back to Lance and looked at him incredulously. “Why did you-Why would I not like you?”

Lance shrugged, a petulant pout still on his face. “I just thought because, well, you know.”

_No, frankly, I don’t. I can’t read your mind, Lance._

Keith suppressed the urge to just drop his head onto the counter and voiced out his frustration.

“Can you just- Can you just say what you mean?” he demanded, gesturing wildly at the space between them: which had seemingly shrunk since they had started talking.

“You’re never at home.” Lance finally blurted out, before a flush overtook his face and he glanced away from Keith’s gaze.

“I mean- I get it. You work. You’re weirdly into studying. I get it. But, we’ve seen each other, what? Five times since we started living together. I just figured you were avoiding me.” Lance confessed, gesturing wildly with his hands as his speech became increasingly faster.

And that was when Keith realised something else about his room-mate.

  * Lance starts to babble when he’s nervous.



A small smile pulled at Keith’s lips as he said. “ Why would I avoid you?”

“I dunno. It-It made sense to me.” He replied back with a shrug.

The smile tugged further up as he gazed at Lance with fondness. “Are you always this self-centered?”

“Wha-?” Lance spluttered and Keith couldn’t help but chuckle at his gobsmacked face. Lance’s eyes narrowed.

“Why’re you laughing?”

“I’m not laughing. I’m coughing.” He responded, feigning a cough as he choked down his laughter that just wouldn’t stop. He could feel his face contort into a pained sort of grimace, the muscles in his face pulling unnaturally as he tried to quell the bubbling laughter within him.

“You’re _laughing.”_

“Coughing. See- I’m- coughing.” He retorted back, snickers already rolling out of him so the supposed cough sounds ended up sounding like some dying cat hacking up a furball.

“Could’ve fooled me.” Lance scoffed, pulling his arms across his chest.

“I’m not. I’m just-” Keith worried at his lower lip thoughtfully for a few seconds before he released a deep sigh. “I’m on a scholarship.”

Lance blinked owlishly at him, his mouth open as if he was just about to say something.

“It’s not a full ride, so I have to work to make up the rest,-” He continued, thumbing the hem of his shirt thoughtfully. “And if my grades drop-”

“You lose the scholarship?” Lance finished with an awestruck face.

Keith nodded, offering a weak and guilty smile. “So, I’m definitely not avoiding you…I’m just-” Keith exhaled loudly, raking a hand through his hair and shrugged. “I don’t not like you either. I-” he trailed off, his mind going back to the thoughts before.

“I thought we _were_ friends.”

“ _Really?”_ came Lance’s astounded voice, his eyes bugging out. And that sad feeling nestled back in Keith’s chest. The feeling that he got sometimes when he was left out back when he first moved into a foster home. That feeling of being isolated from everyone else.

_Why does he sound so shocked? Is it really that hard to believe? Maybe he’s just really disliked me the entire time, but was too polite to voice otherwise and only did the things that he did because he pitied me or something… Maybe…._

“Are we- Do you not want-” he started, stumbling a little on his words.

“No, no, no!” Lance cried out, waving his hands frantically in front of Keith’s face. His cheeks were flushed a slight pink as he continued to babble his response. “I do. I mean, it’d be weird if we _weren’t_ friends, considering we live together, right?”

Keith observed Lance carefully, noting the too tight grin, the shocked look in his eyes and the flustered red that blew up across his face. Keith felt his shoulders relax and his lips quirked up slightly, grateful and relieved. “Yeah. I guess.”

“Cool.” And just like that, the usual grin spread across his face, happiness clearly showing. “So we’re friends. Pals. Amigos. _Bosom buddies.”_ Lance announced, gently nudging Keith’s shoulder as he wiggled his eyebrows playfully.

Keith just looked at him, trying to convey his deepest feeling of disappointment with Lance, but failed miserably. “Only if you promise never to call us that again.”

“I’m sorry, Keith. It comes with the _Lance package.”_ He replied solemnly, placing a hand to his chest as if he was announcing an oath.

“I’d like a return.” Keith snarked back with a deadpan face.

“Sorry, no refunds.” Lance announced, beaming brightly at Keith as he pulled the black haired man into a one sided hug. “You’re stuck with me now, man.”

Keith dropped his head into his hands, muttering “What have I got myself into?” But despite what he said, he found that he rather enjoyed this interaction he had with Lance and didn’t regret meeting Lance at all.

_You wanted friends? Well, now you’ve got them. Don’t waste this opportunity._

* * *

Autumn was truly a lovely time of the year. Keith loved how the world was painted in different hues of red, yellow and brown, the crispness of the increasingly frigid air that smelled like morning dew. Sunrises during autumn were particularly wonderful too.

But despite that, autumn was also the most anti-social time of the year. This was due to the fact that Mother Nature couldn’t fucking decide on anything, especially the weather. One day, it would be a cool and dry autumn day, like it _should_ have been. Other times, it would be pelting it down with rain, soaking anyone and anything to the bone that dared to take a foot outside. And the next day, Mother Nature decided to celebrate Christmas early.

It happened to be the latter that Keith was currently trudging through. The wind tore into Keith with little to no sympathy, blasting his face raw and whipping his hair into a frenzy. With a grimace, he pulled his scarf over his mouth and nose, and tried to snuggle deeper into the soft depths.

_Nearly back at the apartment. Nearly back at the apartment._

Upon finally reaching the door, Keith fumbled with the door’s lock, his fingers clumsy from the cold. With a click, the door unlocked and Keith quickly bustled through, slamming the door shut. Letting out a resigned sigh, he walked further into the brightly lit apartment. Lance was sitting at the sofa, his phone to his ear. He wiggled his fingers in greeting before mouthing “I’ll be a minute.” As he gestured to the phone. Keith sent a thumbs up before he proceeded to shed his layers and boots.

<<Hello Grandma! How are you?>> Lance’s voice rang out from the living room, the Spanish lyrical and soothing to the ear. A couple seconds of silence followed as Lance’s grandma replied back. <<That's good to hear. School is busy, as usual. How was the family dinner last Tuesday?>> Another pause followed. Suddenly Lance winced and gripped the phone tighter. <<That's awful...>>

Keith genuinely wished he had paid more attention to his Spanish teacher back in Year 8 or at least maintained learning the language. Now after nearly four years of learning the language, all he knew were the basic words that Dora the Explorer taught. It would be nice to say something other than the colour red and the numbers from one to five. 

Lance looked towards Keith, who was currently shedding his coat and scarf, and an all too familiar shine in his eyes appeared as Lance smirked impishly.

<< Speaking of poorly children, I have been a _very_ good friend and been cooking for my poor, undernourished roommate. >> Lance smirked as he glanced at Keith, who just raised his eyebrow in confusion. Chuffing, Lance resumed his conversation with his grandmother. <<Yeah, yeah... I know I'm nice.>>

<<So anyway....Wait... No!>> With frantic waves of his hand, Lance’s voice suddenly took one of desperation and his expression marred. <<Don't hang up! We still have so much to talk about! Hello? Grandma?>>

With a grunt of frustration, Lance pulled away from the phone and collapsed onto the sofa, placing a hand dramatically to his forehead. Rolling his eyes at Lance’s melodrama, Keith strode over to the sofa and leaned over to peer down at Lance.

“Bad conversation?” Keith asked.

“No, it was a great conversation. Just found out that cousin Nicolás was really ill and threw up during the family dinner party on Tuesday and that abuelo has been recovering well from his hip surgery.” Lance finally said, propping himself on his elbows to look at Keith.

“So what was with all the flapping?”

“Abuela has this pre-conception that international calls are really expensive so she always tries to cut the conversation as short as possible, even though I’ve told her _time and time_ again that I’ve got an international sim and phone costs are nowhere near as expensive as before.” Lance replied casually, a fond smile pulling at his lips as he shook his head in exasperation. He glanced back up, as if suddenly registering that Keith presence.

“So why are you back so early? Don’t you have work?” Lance piped up, glancing curiously at Keith.

“Normally I wouldn’t be back until later if Sendak is on duty, but today Thace took his shift. He sent us back and closed up the shop. Something to do with a family issue.” Keith shrugged before he suppressed the urge to shiver and rub his hands together, to try and warm himself up after walking in the cold for so long. Because if Keith didn’t know any better, he would say that Lance hadn’t turned on the heater. Except he knew that Lance hated the cold even more than him. (“I come from a tropical place. I refuse to be reduced to an icicle.”)

Unfortunately, Lance caught on the fact and raised an unimpressed brow at Keith. “See, this is what I don’t get. You dress up as if you’re going on an expedition to the North Pole or something, yet you don’t invest in a pair of _proper_ gloves.” Lance called out, pointing to Keith’s gloves.

Frowning, Keith raised both his hands to show Lance properly. “These _are_ proper gloves.”

“Gloves with actual fingers, dumbass.” Lance retorted back, scoffing. With an indignant scowl, Keith quickly peeled off his fingerless gloves and set them on the table, not before muttering “They provide better dexterity.” Under his breath before he too joined Lance on the sofa, the old thing creaking under the collective weight of the two of them.

Lance quickly switched on the TV and leant back into the sofa. It had now become common practice that when Keith had any time off, they would spend as much time relaxing. It usually meant watching reruns of shows or if they were feeling particularly talkative, they would head to Lance’s room to chat.

Unfortunately, it seemed that today didn’t have any discuss worthy subjects. Lance flicked through the range of (less than ten) channels with a bored expression.

“This looks good.” Lance pointed out, his eyes fixed on the Spanish soap that was currently airing. How they managed to receive Spanish soaps but not HBO still perplexed Keith and even Pidge. From what Keith gathered about her, she was a tech genius and all-round book smart person.

“Mom likes to watch this telenova. It’s supposedly really funny.” Lance muttered with a chuckle. The on-screen couple were currently fighting, their faces as red as tomatoes. The woman screamed a string of explosive Spanish, nothing like Lance’s flowing tone. Lance cringed at the woman’s words as he watched the interaction awkwardly.

“So what did she just say?” Keith asked. Lance gave a nervous chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck slightly.

“Oh-it’s an idiom. That –doesn’t really translate well into English.” Lance replied back, ruefully glancing back at Keith before he turned his attention back to the telenova. As Lance became more and more engrossed in the interactions: gasping and suddenly bursting out into laughter, Keith got more and more bored. And more irritated.

“Could we change the channel?” Keith finally snapped out, arms crossed over his chest. With a huff, Lance grumbled under his breath and flicked onto another channel.

Lance finally changed the channel to that of a documentary about the structure of the Earth. It would have been interesting if there were other graphics beside by moving rocks, or moving magma or water moving through the rock or moving through a tunnel or frankly less computer generated graphics. After watching the narrator drone on about the lithosphere for about five minutes, Keith decided enough was enough and with a groan, he switched off the TV.

The TV flickered off with a buzz, blinking back into blackness. The boys sat in silence on the sofa, the sound of the clock ticking away and the scratching hum of the heater echoing in the background. Lance had taken to admiring the coffee table and the creases on the sofa as Keith pointedly looked at the kitchen, a scowl etched on his face.

“So what’s up with this ‘How to cook a Pizza Lasagne’ or ‘How to make a Crème Brulee?” Lance finally piped up to break the silence, holding his phone to show the aforementioned videos.

“I wanted to try and cook them. Why?”

“Well- you said on the text that you want to make everything from scratch, including the pasta to put on the lasagne. Do you even _know_ how to make pasta?”

“No.” Keith replied bluntly, wearing a deadpan face. Lance sighed and raked a hand through his hair, a slightly weary smile across his face.

“How about we learn the basics of cooking before we go and burn the house down?” He asked, picking himself up from the sofa and headed towards the kitchen. Keith continued to stare at Lance before he too hastily picked himself up, stumbling a little to catch up with Lance.

“I had a feeling you were going to ask to cook more after the cookie incident so I ended up writing some instructions for poached eggs. It’s healthy, really quick to do and most of all; it’s _relatively_ simple to make. You can’t go wrong with a poached egg.” Lance started as he fished out a piece of paper from one of his jacket’s depthless pockets, with his somewhat messy handwriting scrawled across the white surface. If Keith was perfectly honest, it looked all Greek to him.

 

As Keith looked over the set of instructions, Lance rummaged round in the cupboards for a small pot. “I mean, after that risotto fiasco and cookie disaster, which is technically near impossible to burn to the extent that it was, I figured we should start with the basics. By the end of this, you _will_ be a better cook than Shiro.” Keith could imagine Lance’s determined look, the gleam in his eyes and the pursed lips.  

“It wasn’t that bad. It looked more like risotto than my previous attempts.” Keith retorted, huffing indignantly as crossed his arms across his chest.

“It really was. You could have made bricks for buildings with your risotto. It would have been harder than even concrete.” Lance responded in a deadpan manner, rolling his eyes. Keith gave a small shrug, accompanied with universal _I don’t know_ look.

A few moments later, Lance had the pot in hand, a triumphant smirk making its way on his face, as if he had found a great, hidden treasure and not a small pot from IKEA.

Taking Keith by the wrists, Lance dragged him to the stove, grinning excitedly. Soon, the spluttering of the stove came to life. He rolled his wrists in the ‘go ahead’ gesture, an encouraging smile on his face.

With a determined nod, Keith went about to following the instructions. He filled the pot with water and placed it on the stove, letting the water simmer before putting two eggs in, (One for Lance and the other for himself) as per instructions. Lance gave an affirmative hum, face content with Keith’s progress as he peered into the pot.

“Good. So you know how to boil water without burning it.”

Keith resisted the urge to step on his foot and wipe that shit-eating grin off his face. He settled for a curt grimace and a light shove. That shit eating grin remained though. With a chuckle, Lance plugged his phone into the speakers, and a jazzy and relaxed tune rung out.

Keith continued to plough through the recipe (could it even be called a recipe?) diligently, Lance watching approvingly by his side.

“Right, now just keep stirring that and the eggs will be done in a couple of minutes.” Lance said with a content smile. He looked about as happy as a mother watching as her child take his first steps. It was an odd mixture of slightly patronising but still endearing nevertheless.

 “I need to quickly go to the toilet, but can I be rest assured that you won’t burn down the house in the time that I’m gone?” Keith let out an unimpressed snort before turning his attention back to the eggs, stirring them slowly. Taking that as an affirmative, Lance sauntered into the washroom, a slight bounce in his step.

The jazzy number made way for Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now and Keith couldn’t help but sway to the song.

The aforementioned eggs had now taken on an off white colour, the yellow yolk barely visible. Keith briefly closed his eyes, listening to the popping and gurgling of the water, oddly therapeutic.

 _♪_ _“And the world…. Turning inside out.”_ _♪_

 _I’m really doing this! It’s not going to shit! I, Keith Kogane, am actually cooking!_ Keith thought with a smug elation, a smile spreading across his face and an air of satisfaction surrounding him. He was now a responsible adult; who needed no help and no supervision. He was an independent man now. He was-

 

The gentle bubbling soon made way for a vicious frothing.           

Distressed by the sudden change in noise, Keith looked back at the stove. Only to let out a (manly) squeak.

The pot was spewing forth a great wave of white bubbles; the pressure inside was building up, causing the pot to sway back and forth hazardously on the stove, like it was convulsing. The water hissed as it came into contact with the burning stove and a shrill noise buzzed in Keith’s ears, like a kettle’s scream. It very well might have been himself…

♪“ _I’m a shooting star leaping through the skies…”_ _♪_

Trying to salvage the eggs, Keith plunged the wooden spoon into the frothing concoction and tried scooping it out. He ended up getting a weird yellowy goop that clung to the spoon like radioactive moss. He had popped them.

“Right. Let’s see how the eggs is doi-SHIT!!” Lance shrieked, vaulting himself over the sofa like a professional Olympian high jumper to sprint over to Keith’s side.

“I- I don’t! I- don’t know what happened!- SHIT!” Words spilled forth from Keith’s lips in a torrent, quickly becoming unintelligible babble. He gestured frantically at the stove, not quite sure what to do with his hands.

 _♪_ _“I’m burning through the sky. Two hundred degrees, that’s why they call me Mr. Farenheit.”_ _♪_

“Grab the mittens! Oh my god, it’s spilling over! Towels! I need some paper towels A.S.A.P! Keith, what the HELL did you do?!” Lance squawked, eyes impossibly wide as he tried to minimise the damage. Before Keith could reply, a voluminous plume of smoke arose from the pot.

The two men howled in horror, running to and from inside the already cramped kitchen, nearly tripping over each other’s legs as Freddie Mercury started belting out into the chorus in the background.

It was absolute chaos.

* * *

 

“Sooooo-“ Keith started.

“Soooooo-“ Lance mirrored, staring before him with a serious gaze.

“That was…. Interesting…”

“What do we do with it now?”

“Eat it?”

A profound silence filled the kitchen, the two boys staring grimly down at the chargrilled slosh that were supposed to be poached eggs.

“Would you really eat _that_?” Lance asked with an incredulous face. Keith grimaced; continuing to look at the charcoal brain of a mess.

“I mean Keith… how the _hell_ did you manage to mess this up? You managed to not only make a poached egg look like the most unappealing thing to eat, an honour that had once gone to those cooked duck embryo things, but you managed to _burn it!_ What did you do?!” Lance asked, genuinely alarmed as he combed his hands through his mussed hair. “Did you follow the instructions?”

“Of course I did! If anything, this is your fault! It was your instructions!” Keith countered heatedly, gesturing at the squishy mess.

“Read it out.”

With a groan, Keith fished the piece of paper from the counter, where in now lay half soaked in an egg-y mess.

“Add water to the pot.” Keith began, eyes roving across the sheet with a bored expression. Lance nodded.

“When the water comes to a gentle simmer, gently crack the egg into the water. Try and get all of the egg concentrated in one area.”

“Go on.”

“Add a little bit of vinegar.”

“Yes?”

“Then stir until the egg turns white.”

Lance paused, hand cupped on his chin in thought, brows furrowing in.

“And you turned down the heat… Of course you did. You’re clever…You did-right?” Lance finally asked after a long pause, looking up at him with a frown still etched on his face and hand still cupped on his chin. Keith snorted before turning back to the instructions. His eyes roved the sheet. Again. Again. Again.

“….You didn’t write it…” Keith began, realisation slowly dawning on him.

“That’s common sense! Oh my god, Keith! <<You're an idot! I can't believe I thought you were _smart! >>_,” Lance said, throwing his hands up into the air.

The weight of the blunder weighed heavily on Keith’s shoulders. He was still in shock when an abrupt snort interrupted his downward spiral of horror.

“Don’t worry. Baby steps. Hey, and look on the good side. I can see a little bit of yellow amongst all that black. That’s better than your risotto.”  He was shaking with the sheer effort of trying to keep a straight face.

“LANCE!” Keith cried out, holding out the plate of burnt egg “How the hell am I supposed to learn if I get _fucking_ poached eggs wrong?!”

“It’s all baby steps…” Lance pointed out. His mouth had contorted in a weird grimace slash grin, his eyes shining brightly with unshed tears.

“Stop laughing!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Who doesn’t know Mercury doesn’t have a moon?” (raises a reluctant hand) Me…. I actually searched up university prospectuses and asked my friend who is applying for astrophysics what it entails and what she will be learning. The things that I do for this fic… My appreciation for Keith has literally sky-rocketed because damn, I didn’t understand a single word she was talking about…
> 
> Also the poached egg kerfuffle is loosely based on my own experiences. It didn’t burn or start smoking like Vesuvius, but it did end up looking a lot less appetising coming out compared to when it went in…
> 
> All of Keith's sleeping episodes are based on my own. Can you tell I fall asleep in class often?
> 
> You can find me at cattearambles on tumblr. Please do scream voltron with me! I need more voltron friends!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might have gone a bit trigger happy when I realised that I could put media links in... Sorry about that. You can ignore them for the most part. 
> 
> Sorry about the delay. I had a lot of stuff going on: revision for A levels, a case of really bad writer's block and then I fractured my ankle. As it turns out, getting injured doesn't help the creative juices get going. 
> 
> Also WARNING: An unholy use of caps, obliviousness to the next level and an explosive Pictionary game ft. the family

 

Keith wasn’t sure when this had started, but it wasn’t anything that he was complaining about.

  
He found that most nights he had shifts at the convenience store, Lance would be there, making time in the shop go just that little faster. Sometimes he brought his DS and they battled each other on Rainbow Road or took turns hurling computer generated opponents off floating platforms in Super Smash Bros. (Usually it involved Keith hurling insults at the characters and charging straight into them, without a thought that they could as easily throw him off)

  
Other times, they had extensive chats about everything and nothing at all. (It really ranged between topics. Just yesterday, they were talking the possibilities of alternate universes and what they planned for the future. And the shift before that, they were talking about the origin of the word ‘meme’ as well as an in depth conversation about Mothman and other cryptid sightings. Lance had fallen off the counter laughing, much to Keith’s chagrin.)

  
Today Lance had seated himself on the counter, an array of textbooks littered around him, arranged like a very tame summoning circle. Maybe he was trying to summon the deity for studying?

  
“So why aren’t you at Shay’s house? You were supposed to be studying there with Pidge and Hunk, right?” Keith asked as Lance inspected one particular page of notes with a slight disinterest, his eyes fogging up with boredom as his hands listlessly scribbled something down. Upon hearing Keith’s voice though, his head perked up with renewed vigour before he shrugged.

  
“Yeah. Well, I love them, don’t get me wrong, but there is only so much healthy mumbo jumbo that I can eat and only so much Victoria Sponge cake recipes I can read to try and put off studying. I guess it’s more fun getting to know my room-mate.” He winked playfully at Keith, who simply rolled his eyes before gently elbowing him. Keith ignored the fact that Lance’s cheeks had a faint smattering of red across them.

  
“I feel flattered that my dorm-mate thinks I’m better than a Victoria sponge cake.” He replied sarcastically, a smirk pulling at his lips as he quickly jotted something down in the margin.

With a scoff, Lance ripped a piece of paper from the lining before scrunching it up and throwing it in Keith’s general direction. “I didn’t say that.”

  
“So am I higher on the scale? Am I better than a sponge cake?” Keith asked blithely, his own studies temporarily forgotten as he leaned on his elbows, a slight smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.  
Lance cupped his chin in thought, humming as he pondered. “Nah. I say you’re about as good as a breadcrumb.”

  
Keith laughed, his cheeks flushing slightly. It was chats like these that made him really glad that he had met Lance. He never realised this before but since meeting Lance, his world was made fractionally brighter, the days seemingly less long (despite the fast approaching nights of the winter months) and his mind less heavy.

  
At first when Lance had made a habit of coming to the convenience store and propping his feet up on the counter, Keith had originally protested, feeling it wasn’t right that anyone as bright or full of energy to be cooped up in such an enclosed and dark place. He had squawked out in indignation when Lance slid across the counter, pushing at him in vain to get off the counter. But despite his protests, he was also glad that Lance was there and ‘grudgingly’ let him stay. Call him selfish, but he was always much happier during his shifts with Lance there to banter with him. He would be lying if he said that it wasn’t his favourite part of his day: hanging out with his roommate in a grungy little convenience store.

  
Even when they weren’t together, they had still found a way to keep up with their banter. It was in these texts and the chats that they had that his mental list of who Lance was and what he did grew exponentially.

  
16) He couldn’t spell to save his life. He always had at least five typos per message. His excuse that his thumbs were too large was NOT a valid excuse. Lance had the slimmest fingers of anyone Keith had ever seen.

  
22) He was an avid user of GIFS and memes, filling their chats with moving images of penguins faceplanting and people spit-taking. There was one time when Lance had received a deep cut in his forearm, for what reason still puzzled Keith as he was too concerned and shocked for his room-mate’s wellbeing. Upon his many texts asking how he was and worrying about the other boy, Lance had sent two GIFS. (Keith had laughed heartily at the Latino boy’s humorous response, but he wasn’t going to say that to Lance’s face.)  
  


35) He sometimes played the guitar, especially when he was stressed or slightly homesick. He said that it reminded of the times that he camped out with his family near the beach, a crackling fire beside them as the ocean heaved against the sand. But when he was really sad, he sat outside in the dining room, staring up at the stars listlessly through the window as he listened to a playlist of Adele’s [ Make You Feel My Love ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh1uZzVoSi8),‘Lucy Rose’s [ Shiver ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o84y-5-cO0), Daughter’s [ Youth ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEpMj-tqixs) and Tyrone Well’s [ Let Go ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZexLvj6FDM) in an endless loop. Those days, Keith sat across Lance, not saying anything, but just being there for a friend in a time of need, ready with a cup of tea when Lance finally 'came back'.

47) Lance could name and sing nearly every Disney song there was. He said that it was from the countless times he had to watch it with his younger family members, but honestly, Keith thought Lance just really enjoyed watching Disney. But then again, who didn’t?

 

Not only had he gotten much closer to Lance as a result of confirming they were indeed friends, Keith had gotten much closer to Lance’s friends; Pidge and Hunk.

  
He had immediately gotten on with the small techie, finally relieved that someone shared his enthusiasm for conspiracies. He also appreciated her blunt and very often savage off-hand remarks, usually towards Lance. (It was probably why Lance constantly kept calling her a ‘gremlin’.) It was all straight to the point; the best way that misunderstandings could be avoided. (Though there were exceptions as she often got caught up in her admiration for technology and pioneers in the technological world.)

  
Hunk was… well he was Hunk. An oversized teddy bear who made the most mouth-watering things possible. It was hard not to like Hunk; with his down to earth demeanor, his friendliness and his low key sarcastic comments.

  
“Right… I think I’m done with revision for today. I don’t know how much of the stuff I read today is going to be retained in my brain.” Lance said, pulling Keith out of his reverie. Lance winced as he stretched out his long limbs, his joints popping and clicking back into place. He picked up a scrunched up piece of receipt that a customer left behind earlier and pointedly looked at Keith.

  
“If I can get _this_ \- “ He pointed over at the bucket tucked away in the far corner of the room “If I can get this into that bucket over there, what will you give me?”

  
With a deadpan gaze, Keith replied “Absolutely nothing. I might kick you out though.”

  
Lance rolled his eyes before he took aim at the bucket, his tongue peeking out his mouth in concentration. “You always say that-” He pointed out, watching his balled up receipt fall short of the bucket with a disappointed pout. He quickly scrunched up another receipt by Keith’s side. “And yet here I am.” He reminded Keith, sweeping his free arm in the general direction of the store.

  
Keith watched with amusement as Lance prepared to throw the receipt. Lance noticed him from the corner of his eye and with a groan, turned to face Keith.

  
“You have to give me something. Like-Like, you’ll clean the bathroom for a week if I get it in.”

  
Keith wrinkled his nose at the prospect of cleaning the toilet, the hypothetical smell already making him feel slightly nauseous. “A week? For one shot?” he asked incredulously.

  
“Seven in a row?” Lance yielded, leaning over Keith to the small receipt pile that had accumulated during the day. “One for every day of the week?”

  
_One for every day of the week…_ that was a proposition that Keith couldn’t ignore. He pushed the text book out of the way before leaning forward on steepled fingers. “And when you miss?” he questioned, a clear challenge in his voice. He could feel the beginnings of the familiar competitiveness bubbling under the surface, just like the flare of a match before the explosion.

  
“ _If_ I miss-“ Lance scoffed as he corrected Keith “For every one I miss, I’m on bathroom duty.”

  
Now _THIS is something I can’t refuse._

  
Satisfied with the conditions that had been set, Keith nodded approvingly. “No rim shots. It has to land straight in.”

  
Lance grinned, his smirk confident and borderline arrogant before he flicked the balled up receipt. Keith smirked as he noted the wide arc.

  
_It’s not going to go in._

  
Unfortunately, seconds later, Keith heard the plop of the balled up receipt hitting its target.

  
_Goddammit…_

  
“That’s one point for me and one day of bathroom duty for _you_.” He sang complacently, his grin only widening. Using his index finger, he drew a line down in what Keith assumed was a mental tally chart.

“Again. Now.” Keith growled out, pushing the remaining of the scrunched up balls towards Lance. Lance shrugged before he flicked another ball towards the bucket. As it arched up, Keith hoped to all the deities above that it didn’t land.

  
“Fuck….” Lance muttered when the ball fell slightly short of the bucket. Keith smirked, and mirrored exactly what Lance did with the mental tally chart.

  
“And that’s one day of bathroom duty for _you_.” Keith said with a smug smirk as Lance hurriedly picked up another ball from the pile. “I think I like this game.” Keith admitted, propping his head in his hand. Lance glowered at him but the slight smile told Keith that he found this equally fun.

* * *

  
In the end, it was 2 to Lance and 5 to Keith. (“What can I say, Keith? I’m the paper toss sharpshooter.” He had said with a smug grin at the time. Keith did everything in his power to not shove Lance off from his high perch. Like a cat sending anything and everything toppling around down.)

  
It came to Keith’s second time to clean out the toilet and he was pulling up the rubber gloves when Lance suddenly ran out of the bathroom, suppressing his laughter. Keith looked behind him at the empty corridor with bewilderment before he ventured towards the bathroom. And that was when it hit him.

  
“Oh my GOD! Lance! That’s DISGUSTING! YOU CAN’T JUST LEAVE SKID MARKS LIKE THAT IN THE TOILET! WERE YOU RAISED IN A ZOO?!” Keith yelled down the corridor, a gloved hand covering his nose to prevent the toxic fumes from overwhelming him.

 

“Get back here, you heathen and clean it up yourself! BARBARIAN! This is a COMMUNAL _FUCKING_ AREA!” He roared, charging into the living room where Lance was cackling on the floor.

* * *

 

Keith was one of those people who nitpicked others who started playing Christmas songs on November the 1st (Because what good was listening to Michael Buble when he was _explicitly_ singing _about December_ and ‘rocking around the tree’ _when it wasn’t even up yet_?! They had just celebrated Halloween, goddamit. He did NOT need this much hype for 3 consecutive months. But he digressed.) Keith was also one of those people that did not get into the Christmas spirit until about mid-December, grimacing at the cheesy decorations in shop fronts and mock snow glazed windows that were put up in early November.

  
However this Christmas started when Lance gave him his present just before they broke up for Christmas.

  
Lance had dumped a small package in his hands, its neat wrapping putting his own to shame. There was even a small bow that was tied around it and Keith couldn’t help but wonder how long it had taken him to do.

  
His own gift wrapping had taken a total of an hour and twenty three minutes for the six he had prepared. (The first two seasons of Paranormal: Across the Globe and Beyond for Pidge, a spice rack for Hunk, the entire Planet Earth I series for Coran, a silver charm bracelet for Allura and a black cat mug and a t-shirt that had “My brother went to Space and only got me this lousy t-shirt” written on it for Shiro). Keith knew as a fact, due to the number of times they had ended up hanging up in Lance’s room, that at the foot of Lance’s bed were at least twenty if not more meticulously wrapped presents, all of different sizes.

  
“Not till Christmas. And when you do open it, I want pictures.” Is what he had said before leaving for the door, tugging his suitcase out of the door.

  
So here he was, sitting cross legged in front of the pathetically small but most of all, fake Christmas tree in Shiro’s shared flat with Allura. Their parents were out of town for a few days for their 30th wedding anniversary and wouldn’t be back until the 29th. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, if the multitudinous selfies they had taken of the London landmarks was anything to go by.

  
(“Do they really have to do this?” Shiro had asked with a slight exasperation when he first received one picture of their parents kissing by the Thames, snow falling all around them and fairy lights hanging in the night air. It was like the corniest rom-com and for Shiro and Keith, it would always be gross and awkward when their parents did anything lovey-dovey in front of them.)

  
“So… Tell me again why I’m filming you again?” Shiro asked, peering from behind the phone and shooting Keith a confused look. Despite the confusion, he had a slight smirk on his face, as if he knew something Keith didn’t.

  
Keith shot him a dirty glare as he slowly peeled off the tape, careful to not rip the wrapping paper too much. “Just do it.” He was currently wearing the monstrosity of a jumper that Shiro had given him last year, its neon colours clashing horribly. But it was surprisingly soft and it was definitely warmer than his own hoodie. Plus Christmas automatically meant ugly jumpers. No way around it.

  
Unpeeling the wrapping paper back, his eyes widened at the small black object nestled in the centre. He was honestly shocked beyond words.

  
“What is it?” Shiro asked, shuffling closer to him as Keith continued to stare almost reverently at the gift.

“A lens?”

Keith cleared his throat. He could already feel a light blush spreading across his face. “Yeah. Um, for my phone.”

  
“Cool. Who got you that?”

  
“Lance.”

  
Shiro peered from behind the phone, a shit eating grin in place and eyebrows wiggling suggestively. Shiro glanced at the phone and a knowing look took over his features “Lance. That’d be your roommate, Lance.”

  
Keith promptly scowled at Shiro, shooting him a ‘yeah-what are you getting at?’ face. Shiro just continued to smirk. “I don’t know any other Lance’s, Shiro.” Keith bit out in exasperation.

  
Shiro’s eyes glinted and smirk widened almost impossibly. It was the same glint when they all went on a family fishing trip and Shiro had felt the first tug of his line as the fish took the bait. It was the glint of knowing too much. Everything screamed at Keith to back away. Something was up…

  
“And that would be the Lance you’ve-"

  
_Oh! That’s what’s he getting at. Son of a-_

  
The unspoken “you’ve been talking about so much.” Hung in between the two brothers. Keith didn’t even have to wait to know that that was what Shiro was going to say. His face said it all.

  
Suddenly the world slowed down, and with the grace and agility of a lion on a hunt, Keith swandived for the phone, snatching it out before Shiro could complete the sentence. (Shiro would say otherwise and say that he had let out the most indignant squawk before tripping over his own feet to get to the phone, but he was lying. Keith simply _oozed_ grace.)

  
After grabbing the phone off from Shiro, Keith smoothed out his rumpled clothes, trying to calm himself down before he sent the video off to Lance.

  
Keith  
> wow  
> thank u???

Lance  
> MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!  
> and np, man!!!  
> glad u like it  
> uh...what happened at the end of the video?

  
Keith  
> nothing!!!!!

  
Lance  
> didn’t sound like nothing...

  
Shiro snickered as he peered over Keith’s shoulder, reading the messages that Lance had sent him. Keith batted his older brother away, physically pushing him out of the way and shouldering his brother harshly. It was like moving a rock up a hill.

  
“Not a word.” Keith gritted out with narrowed eyes.  
With a final snigger, Shiro ambled leisurely back towards his bedroom. Probably to gossip to Allura about what just happened.

  
Keith  
> and yet  
> it was  
> funny that

  
Lance  
> 凸(｀△´＋）

  
Keith  
> have u opened your present yet?

  
Lance  
> doing it now!!  
> gimme a sec

  
Keith waited a bit before Lance’s reply suddenly bombarded his phone. During that time, he took the chance to admire the lens.

  
Suddenly, his phone started pinging rapidly, the blue light flashing manically.

  
Lance  
> HOW?????????  
> WHERE DID U FIND IT???

  
Keith chuckled before typing in his reply.

Keith  
> :)  
> i ordered some in at work  
> no big deal

  
Lance  
> VERY BIG DEAL  
> KEITH!!!!!!  
> KEITH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  
Keith  
> :)  
> dont eat them all  
> i still have to try this ‘holy grail of chocolate bars’

  
Lance  
> cant believe u remembered that  
> but yeah, ofc!!!  
> i’ll save u some

  
Well of course _I would remember… All the regulars have been questioning about the ‘man who is always with me’ to no end_ … Keith thought with a dry smile.

  
Unbeknownst to him, Shiro had slipped out of his room, Allura peering out from behind him. Both of them wore equally affectionate smiles as they stared at the boy in the sitting room, whose eyes were unfocused and a rare gentle smile that was like the sun breaking out from a cover of clouds.

 

“Look at him! I haven’t seen him looking this… tender since that time he had that pet rabbit. No… that didn’t even compare to _this_.” Shiro murmured to Allura, his hand cupped to her ear. She hummed in assent and gazed on with her clear blue eyes.

  
“Do you reckon something will happen between the two?” She asked as she watched Keith continue to type out his response to Lance, a wide grin surfacing every few seconds or a light chuckle slipping from his lips. Shiro shrugged, an odd expression fixed on.

  
“I don’t know. With Keith, it has to be completely natural. He has to be the one to realise his own feelings, without any interference. And I don’t know how long it would be for him to realise his feelings. It may take weeks. Months even. It may even occur when it’s already too late.” Shiro whispered back, peering somewhat sadly at his younger brother, whose eyes lit up with every new text.

* * *

  
The cold winter air blasted through when Coran walked in, several bags in hand.  
“Brilliant, Coran is back with the food! I can start cooking now.” Allura said ecstatically, picking herself up from the sofa where she was having tea with Shiro and Keith. She briskly swept her hair back into a messy bun, before she glanced at the wall clock.

  
“And it’s still 6. Plenty of time to cook.” Allura said, satisfied.

  
“Ooh, yes! This shopping trip was a really good haul. I found so many things. ” Coran started, tugging at his scarf and slipping out of his coat. He dug around in one of the many shopping bags, before producing a greenish bumpy thing, a triumphant grin on his face. Allura froze where she was, her face pinched in a slight frown as if something dawned on her. Judging from her face, it couldn’t be a good thing.

  
“Look what I found in ChinaTown! It’s a custard apple! I don’t know what it is, but I wanted to try it.” Coran said excitedly, placing the fruit down on the kitchen counter.

  
“Coran…. Have you-?” Allura started.

  
“I also found this really nice spicy prawn paste that’ll go really well with the noodles that I’ve also got!” Coran continued eagerly, completely ignoring Allura as he gingerly took out a glass jar of red flake things. “Though I’m not sure how this is a paste. That’s what the shopkeeper told me anyway.”

  
“Coran-“ Allura started more forcefully, only to be interrupted again by Coran.

  
“I also found this really nice seasoning that would go amazingly with steaks. It’s in here somewhere….”

  
“ _Coran_ -"

  
“And! I even got some foie gras and crackers! Because it’s Christmas; we have to treat ourselves.” Coran said, pulling out a packet of thin wafer biscuits from the depths of one of the shopping bags.

  
“That’s all great and everything… But have you got the turkey? Like we asked you to get? Or even a chicken?”

  
Coran scoffed at her, before he briefly looked into the bags. His enthusiastic and self-accomplished face suddenly blanched as the biscuits in his hands fell to the floor. Allura sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation.

  
“I knew you would get carried away….”

  
With a sigh and a whimsical smirk, Keith hauled himself from the foot of the sofa and with one smooth movement, grabbed his phone from the coffee table. He waved his phone with an entertained smile tugging at his lips to the now arguing pair, with Shiro acting as the mediator.

  
“Takeaway?”

  
Allura sighed, undoing her bun to run her hands through her silvery hair. She shot Keith a thankful look before glaring playfully at Coran, who was now rubbing his neck ruefully.  
“Yeah… Sure. Why not?”

* * *

  
Keith kept Lance updated with his Christmas and likewise, his phone was constantly lighting up with new notifications from Lance. And he would look at each one just as eagerly as he had at the beginning of the day.

  
Keith briefly looked at the most recent selfie of Lance, his face obstructing most of the photo and felt a fond smile creep across his face. A woman in the background was mid-shout, her umber hair sticking wildly from its bun. A smaller girl, presumably Lance’s sister… or cousin… or niece (Whatever… someone in his family who happened to be a girl) had taken her place besides Lance, her mouth wide open revealing the back of her throat, the same mischievous gleam in her eyes as Lance did. Surrounding the elongated table were other people, frozen in time. One small boy was shooting something through a straw at someone on the opposite side. An elderly lady sat next to the young boy and was chuckling at something that a younger girl did or said. And next to Lance’s mother, a man was seated, his face in utter concentration; his head lolled back as a teenager girl balanced an apple on his forehead.

 

The table was flooded with food, the turkey sitting proudly in the middle of the disorganised table and cracker remains scattered across. Keith looked at his own Christmas dinner of pizza, and felt a sense of awkward shame rise up inside of him.

  
But his Christmas was far from uneventful.

  
“CORAN! WHAT ARE YOU DRAWING!?!Oh my god, you’re awful at this!” Allura exclaimed, raking her hands through her hair, yanking harshly as she groaned in exasperation.

  
“I CAN’T TELL YOU! THAT’S AGAINST THE RULES!! Just guess harder!” Coran yelled back, his head bent over the piece of paper in concentration.

  
“A truck? A bus? A building? WHAT IS IT?!” Allura blurted out, dragging her hands down her face in pent up frustration.

  
Keith chuckled as he took a sip of his mulled wine, watching the chaos unfold before him. It was like watching someone fall over while doing a stunt in slow motion. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t take your eyes off of it. And the awareness of instantly feeling better about yourself would always follow.

  
“We’ve got this in the bag.” Shiro whispered, a smug smirk across his face, arms crossed over his broad chest.

  
“They’re going down.” He muttered back with a wicked smile in place, eyes still watching his to- be-sister-in-law and uncle keenly, watching their scuffle and their flustered state.

  
“Like taking sweets from a baby.” Shiro whispered to her brother, his eyes bright with triumph. With one last snort, Keith took a sip from his mulled wine, holding out his palm under the table. Without even looking due to the years of practice, Shiro low fived Keith, triumphantly smug faces present on both of the brothers’ faces. It was like looking at a pride of lions before the hunt started; a hunt that was already tipped heavily in their favour.

  
It was just really unfortunate for Coran and Allura that their random allocation of team members had ended up like this. Neither of them could draw and Coran’s over-active imagination often left people more confused than they probably should have been. (“ _How could you not see that this is a rhinoceros?” “What’s this then?” “_ Its _hide!” “Looks like folded wings…_ ”)

  
Also, when Keith’s mind was set on something, he was like an engine; mowing down any obstacles to get what he wanted and powering through with almost a super-human determination. And while Allura had a streak for competition, it didn’t stand close to his own. Nothing could stand in his way between the title of Pictionary winner and ultimate victory.

  
“Tick tock… Tick tock…Your time has officially-“ Shiro peered over at the dwindling sands of the hourglass, eyes level with the small plastic toy. “Run out! Hand it over. Let the experts show you how it’s done.” Shiro said, holding his hand out for the dice. With a defeated sigh, Allura placed the dice in Shiro’s open palm.

  
“What was that, Coran?” Allura asked tiredly, an odd look fixed on her face as she looked over at the older man through her fingers, her cheeks bright red and her hair in a tangle.

  
“The Titanic.”

  
Allura raised a quizzical eyebrow before plucking the sheet of paper from the table, bringing it closer to her face with jerky movements as she squinted at the drawing, scrutinising every detail.

  
“Where… How?” Allura finally managed after a long pause.

  
“This is Rose and Jack, holding onto the door. This is the iceberg. This is the boat itself.” He replied, as if it were the easiest question in the world.

  
She let out a slightly exaggerated sigh, raking a hand through her silvery hair. Shiro smirked at her, but his eyes twinkled with a loving fondness.

  
“Aren’t you supposed to be at least a little sympathetic to me? I _am_ your fiancée. Fiancées are supposed to always support their spouse.” Allura said, angling herself to see Shiro through her fingers. Shiro shrugged before shooting Allura another smug smirk.

  
“What was it that you told me when we played scrabble? ‘All is fair in love and war’? And what else did you say? I think it went along the lines of ‘Everyone for their own.’” Shiro asked innocently, leisurely rolling the dice in his hand.

  
“You’re dead to me. Just roll the damn dice already.” Allura grumbled before she tried half-heartedly swatting Shiro away, her hand fumbling for the glass of wine to her side. She pointed a decisive finger at Coran, eyes narrowed.

  
“I don’t care if he’s my fiancée, Coran. We are going to annihilate them. You hear me?!” She muttered, her eyes dark with ire. It would have been intimidating if she _actually_ point at Coran. She was on her fifth glass of wine and while her speech hadn’t slurred yet, she was swaying around, giggling randomly every so often.

  
“Roll a three. Roll a three…”Shiro muttered, eyes squeezed shut. He brought the dice up and started to shake his hands briskly near his forehead. It was something that he had done even as a young child and even though it had been several years since he first witnessed this, Keith still thought that he looked like she was praying for strength in an upcoming battle, not a simple dice throw.

  
Shiro released it, and it bounced across the hard wood coffee table, before landing on a three.  
“I think that dice has been rigged. No way could you have rolled two sixes earlier and now conveniently rolled a three that was needed to win this game.” Allura muttered under her breath, head still cupped in one hand as the other hand held her wine glass.

  
With a pleased smile, Keith picked up their in-game token, (a stereotypical green alien: it satisfied Keith’s need for conspiracy and Shiro’s own passion for space) and moved it to the end space, before plucking a game card from the stack of cards. Suddenly Shiro’s face lit up and his mouth twitched upwards, gaze flitting rapidly from the card to Keith.

  
“Keith whatever you do, you _have_ to guess this right. Your reputation is at stake here.” Shiro stated in complete seriousness, his gaze unwavering. Keith returned the nod as earnestly as he could.  
“And your time… starts… now!” Coran announced, flipping the hourglass over.

  
Shiro quickly scribbled something onto the paper, his hand deftly moving across the paper in quick strokes. Keith watched intently as Shiro proceeded to draw two stick figures, one slightly higher than the other, holding a- stick?

  
“Tug of war? Drop down dead?”

  
With a brisk shake of his head, he continued with his drawing. He drew a misshapen thing underneath the two stick figures and some wavy lines.

 

“Tick tock… tick tock. Your time is running out.” Allura sang, mirroring Shiro’s own taunt. Keith glared at her as Shiro continued to scribble out an almond shaped thing with triangles sticking haphardously on the sides of it, a large circle in the middle of the almond thing and an arrow pointing down, before he finally drew one last stick figure in the middle of the almond thing. Shiro set the pencil down with finality, shooting Keith a pointed look.

  
But he still didn’t know it.

  
“Tick tock… tick tock.”

  
_Almond with a circle._

  
_Man holding a pole…_

  
_Flag?_

  
_Three people!_

  
_Bumpy surface!_

  
“Come on, Keith! It’s an iconic scene!” Shiro yelled, jabbing the pencil so hard that the tip broke. He bit his bottom lip as he started tapping the picture in a seemingly random pattern, eyes wild with a manic light.

 

“And your time is-“

  
“It’s the Apollo 11!” Keith shouted, abruptly standing up from the table, hands smacking against the surface of the table. The cups which held their mulled wines in swayed precariously.

  
Several beats passed before Shiro grinned ecstatically, yelling “IN YOUR FACE, ALLURA!” as he jumped up from his seat. He gave Keith a strong (slightly painful) high five, before ruffling his hair. Keith squirmed and protested (Shiro said it was like watching a kitten being doted on, much to Keith’s dismay) to get out of his brother’s grip but found it pointless, so ended up enduring his brother’s affectionate ruffling.

Allura buried her face in a nearby pillow, before emitting a muffled cry of frustration as Coran tutted, murmuring soothing words to the woman. She glared up at the two brothers with narrowed eyes, her cheeks flushed red: either from the alcohol or the lack of oxygen from screaming into the pillow.

  
“I demand a re-match.” She gritted out, her eyes narrowed at the two brothers. Keith smirked and held his hand out expectantly.

  
“You’re just a sore loser, Allura. Just admit defeat and hand over the lot that you put in earlier.” (said ‘lot’ was a crisp $100 bill because this was war, and stakes had to be put high, while Coran had put in a $150 gift voucher for Amazon) She huffed in annoyance before she started to fumble for her purse when suddenly a slight glint surfaced in her crystal blue eyes.

  
With a quick swipe, she sent the board toppling, the pieces and cards sent flying away from the table.  
Keith and Coran yelled in tandem as several mugs fell off the table, spilling the burgundy wine in thin rivulets. Allura simply looked on and laughed, throwing her arms up and silvery head back.

 

["Take that!"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4mbbcMz4v4) She cried out, continuing with her laughter.

  
Shiro glanced up from his seat and sighed. “You sure that you’re 27 years old?” He asked as Keith continued to squabble with his fiancée. A drunk argument was something he was seriously hoping to avoid. With another long suffering sigh, Shiro stood up and held Allura by the elbow, tugging her closer to him.

  
“Right. We are going to clean this up and after that, we’re going to watch Love Actually. No buts. Allura, you get the cards and Keith; you get the floor.” He firmly stated. Allura glared at Keith, her eyes ablaze with irritation. Keith stuck his tongue out at her, knowing that Allura wasn’t really angry with him. She narrowed her eyes before she pointedly sent a stink eye to the now smiling Shiro.

  
“Fine, and only because you are really cute. I need to watch some young Colin Firth…” She muttered as she trudged away, sulking. That’s what alcohol did to you. It makes you swing from one extreme to another, from a petty sore loser, to a strangely compliant sack of potatoes.

  
As Allura kneeled down and gathered the cards up, Keith quickly slid out to check his phone and was pleasantly surprised to see a barrage of texts from Lance and promptly replied to them, smiling ever so softly at the phone.

  
Lance  
> let my niece have a sip of my drink  
> told her it was wine  
> she’s been slurring her words for the last 20 mins  
> it was blackcurrant juice

  
Keith  
> amazing  
> we got too into a game of pictionary  
> and forgot the turkey  
> we’re having pizza for dinner  
> on christmas day  
> embarrassed to say this isnt the first time this has happened

 

Lance  
> i cant believe you’re real  
> dw  
> next year, i’ll cook u a real christmas dinner

  
_Next year? I’ll cook you a real Christmas dinner?_ Keith’s fingers hovered over the screen for a while as he felt the tips of his ears burn, a flustered smile making its way across his face. Lance hadn’t hesitated with his answer; as if it was a simple fact that they would be spending the next Christmas together.

  
It surprised him, how easily Lance had slotted into his life, how easily their interactions came. He found himself thinking about how he has _enjoyed_ spending time with Lance, his presence always comforting and welcoming. It left him feeling oddly lightweight and dizzy, like he was walking on air (and it had nothing to do with the one glass of mulled wine that he had. He wasn’t _that_ much of a lightweight!), his stomach twisting in on itself and his heart throbbing almost painfully.

  
Suddenly, something clicked inside of him, like the gears of his brain had finally started to work after being disused for a long time, suddenly whirring into action. It was at that moment when Keith realised something.

  
He couldn’t imagine living a life without Lance there to tease him. To cook with him. To study with him. To laugh with him. His life would be so much emptier without Lance to fill in those gaps and Keith couldn’t help but wonder how he had managed to survive for the first month by himself.

  
Keith didn’t know what _exactly_ he felt for his roommate was, but it was definitely there: running in his veins and nestling itself deep in his bones. And it made him happy. That was all he knew.

  
Smiling, Keith quickly typed his reply to Lance, before shoving his phone into his back pocket, joining the rest of his family, their laughter and teasing ringing in the air. And suddenly, he couldn’t wait for the holidays to end.

  
Keith  
> im looking forward to it

* * *

  
After Christmas, Keith found himself spending a lot more time with Lance. Not that he was complaining about it. It was nice; it never felt forced or awkward, which was usually the case for most people that Keith met. The professors had given more time for their dissertations, but because he was basically on top of his work, Keith didn’t feel the need to continue editing his dissertation. (He had already written the work needed for the next two deadlines, so it wasn’t anything he was overly concerned about.)

 

“You’re watching that documentary again? Didn’t you watch it last week?” Lance asked one night, peering over Keith’s shoulder as the majestic orchestral opening resounded in the small room before fading to darkness. Keith scowled as he swiped at the boy behind him.

  
“It’s an ongoing series that gets released every week. Of course I watched it last week. That’s like asking me if you watched last week’s Masterchef semi-final with Hunk.” Keith stated, his eyes still glued on the screen as it cut to a panoramic view of the Himalayas.

  
“Fair enough.” Lance shrugged before he pulled another chair next to Keith. (He had previously stated that he was only supposed to be dropping off Keith’s laundry but he had ended up being entranced by the fauna.)

  
“I am constantly worried for these goats and that they’re going to fall. Those slopes are basically vertical! I mean, come on and look at them. ” Lance muttered tensely, his eyebrows furrowed in concern as he worried his bottom lip. He gasped as soon as one of the young ones, tumbled a little down the treacherous slope, sending a small avalanche of rocks down to the bottom of the valley.

  
“They’re Nubian Ibexes, Lance. Not goats.” Keith replied curtly, a similar look of worry etched on his face as he hugged a pillow to himself.

  
“I would not want to be one of them.” Keith nodded in agreement. While he wasn’t afraid of heights, he didn’t like the idea of how spindly their legs were or how little footholds were present on the slope. They were literally walking on the razor edge of death and life. He and Lance breathed a simultaneous sigh of relief when the ibexes reached the bottom of the valley.

  
“Red foxes lie in wait. At the first sign of danger, the young ibexes instinctively run back to steeper ground.” David narrated, as the swell of quick and tense music built up, depicting the young goat-deer things leaping and sprinting up the near vertical hill.

  
The chase was on.

  
“Okay, are we team wolf or team goat?” Lance asked nervously, gripping another pillow to his chest as the fox cornered a small herd of young on an outcrop of rock that was 10 metres from the rest of the slope.

  
“Obviously the fox.” Keith said monotonously.

  
“You heartless person…” The other boy muttered under his breath. Suddenly, the ibixes leapt from the outcrop of rock with wild abandon as if it were a small step and not a height that if landed incorrectly, could break those spindly legs like twigs.

  
Keith cheered and yelled taunts towards the now retreating fox, pumping a fist in the air. Lance sidelooked him with a small grin, cupping his face in his hand.

  
“Aww. Mister ‘I’m really edgy and emo’ actually cares.” Lance teased, flashing Keith a grin. With a scoff and a well aimed punch to the shoulder, Keith settled back down as the scene cut to the snowy hills of the Alps.

  
“How do they get these shots?! It actually feels like we’re flying _alongside_ those eagles. Is Dave actually on top of these eagles or something” Lance murmured in amazement as the camera whizzed down the slopes, taking sharp turns through crevices and outcroppings of rock.

  
Keith shrugged as if he didn’t care, but he was similarly enraptured by the shots. And just like Lance said, it felt like they too had wings and were spiralling down towards the ground.

  
It was absolutely breath-taking and never more in his life than in that moment did he want to be able to fly with such agility or speed. Even the thought of being on his motorcycle couldn’t relieve this deep and unsated need for speed.

  
Keith could almost feel the wind on his face and through his hair and could almost smell the crispness of freshly fallen snow and not the musty smell of laundry and sleep.

  
“Leave Lucinda alone!!! Give this poor baby food!!” Lance eventually wailed, watching as a much larger eagle tore towards the female eagle that they were watching from the start, just after a few carrions were nipping at her tail feathers. Keith glanced to his side disbelievingly, a tender smile pulling at his lips as he watched the Latino boy continue to complain about the inequality and prejudice of it all, waving his hands emphatically.

  
“Lucinda. Really?”

  
“Shut up. I’m already too emotionally attached to this bird and I will name it, regardless of what you think.” Lance huffed in reply, crossing his arms over his chest. Lance’s childish response sent a warmth that spread in his chest before he let out a small chuckle.

  
(Their running commentary continued on for the rest of the night. Lance even made the effort of sending Pidge a small GIF of the group of flamingos in the salt lake, the tag saying : “Trying to find you in the crowd. Where art thou Pidgey?!” Keith totally did not find this endearing at all. Not at all.)

* * *

  
“Yoo-hoo? Earth to Keith?”

  
Keith was quickly pulled out of his memory of yesterday’s documentary watching, blinking furiously as he tried remembering where he was.

  
Shiro looked at him somewhat sympathetically however that was overshadowed by the look of plain mirth, a small shit eating grin making its way on his face.

  
“What were you thinking about?” He asked mildly. Despite his caring demeanour and words, it didn’t faze Keith. If anything, it put him more on edge.

  
“Nothing.”

  
“Really? It didn’t look like nothing. You had this weird, glazed look in your eye.” Shiro replied good naturedly, smiling at his younger brother.

  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  
“You looked… what’s the word? Hey Allura” He called back, leaning on his chair to address his off-screen fiancée. “What’s that word when you have that really faraway look of wanting something but not being able to have it?”

  
“Wistful?”

  
“Again, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Keith replied with a slight smile. Despite his nonchalant actions, Keith couldn’t help the surge of embarrassment that coiled down his spine and pooled in his stomach, for reason that baffled Keith. Shiro raised an eyebrow but didn’t press on.

  
“So how is everything on your side?” Shiro asked. Keith shrugged and mumbled something incoherent, along the lines of it being fine. Somehow, Shiro still managed to understand.

  
“I mean, I’m finally on top of all my work and so I’ve been chilling quite a lot recently.”

  
Shiro nodded, seemingly satisfied with what Keith said before he paused, narrowing his eyes at Keith. After a few seconds of silence, Shiro asked, a slight frown marring his expression: “What time have you been sleeping?” With a groan, Keith put his head on the table.

  
“Shiro, I’m fine. I’ve been sleeping earlier.”

  
“Earlier?”

  
“12 o’clock.”

  
“That _is_ pretty early for you.”

  
“Which is what I said earlier.” With another groan, Keith dragged a hand down his face.  
Shiro was still looking at him with evident concern still etched on his face, before it softened into something else.

  
“I’m just looking out for you.” Shiro paused, as if collecting his thoughts together. “Just know that me, mum and dad are all immensely proud of you. You’ve come so far and while we know that you have a lot of work, don’t forget to also think about yourself. You always throw yourself head into situations, without really looking around you or how your actions affect you as a person. Take a step back sometimes, okay?”

  
With a roll of his eyes, Keith nodded. Ever since he had left for university, his parents and Shiro had seemed to make it their mission to remind Keith to take a step back, pulling him out of his one minded resolve. He appreciated the sentiment but at the same time, it was slightly patronising to say this to a person in their last year of university. He had managed so far, hadn’t he?

 

“Yeah. Okay.” Shiro beamed at his younger brother, pride lighting his eyes.

  
“So I was talking to mum yesterday and she said that next time we go back to visit them, she wants us to try this new recipe. And I know it’s only been a few days since the end of the Christmas holidays, but Dad was raving about how- Keith, buddy, someone is behind you.” Shiro pointed out with a smile, gesturing behind Keith.

  
Keith whirled around in his seat to find Lance standing by the entrance, faltering in his resolve as if realising something.

  
“Hey, you okay?” Keith asked, pulling out his earphones as he gestured Lance into the room. Lance nodded tightly, quickly putting the pile of laundry onto the Laundry Chair ™.

  
“Sorry for – “ Lance said, jerking his head towards the general direction of the laptop.

  
_Oh_.

  
With a brisk tug, he pulled the headphones out of the jack.

  
“Shiro, this is Lance. Lance, this is Shiro.”

  
Realisation and recognition dawned on Lance’s face as he padded towards the screen. Keith watched with amusement as Lance became increasingly flustered, his hands moving aimlessly in front of him.  
Shiro chuckled before he leaned towards the camera. “You’re the one making sure my little brother doesn’t starve to death?”

  
With a scoff, Keith rolled his eyes. Suddenly, an impish light danced in Lance’s eyes as he edged closer towards the screen.

  
“It’s hard work. But someone has to do it. Poor kid was living off toast and cereal bars before I came into the picture.”

  
Shiro let out a hearty laugh, probably laughing at his brother’s ineptitude or his dining choices.

  
“It’s not like _you’re_ any better. The whole risotto was _your_ fault.” Keith retorted, scowling at his still laughing brother.

  
“It wasn’t me that left the thing for 40 minutes when I _specifically_ said 14 minutes.”

  
“You definitely said 40 minutes and you’re the one who decided to put the roast potatoes at three times its recommended temperature because, I quote ‘ _It would be so much faster this way_.’”

  
“I wasn’t the one who messed up poached eggs.”

  
“You’re the one that didn’t cook the chicken correctly and ended up giving me salmonella.”

 

“Bah, you had a weak digestive system. Allura was fine with it.”

  
“I’m pretty sure she took one look at that chicken and threw it in the bin.”

  
The rest of the evening continues in much of the same manner. Lance quietly observed his interaction between the two of them from Keith’s bed. Sometimes, Shiro pulled Lance into their discussions and Keith couldn’t help but smile at their budding interaction, glad that his brother and Lance had gotten on pretty quickly. But then again, Lance was the most amiable person he knew. It was hard not to like Lance, with all of his charismatic charm and witty quips.

  
(“So mum brought these things back from the UK called ‘Jaffa Cakes’. It has a sponge cake bottom with a chocolate and orange topping. So is it a biscuit or a cake? Keith isn’t agreeing me on this one. It’s clearly a cake.”

  
“I’m pretty sure it’s a biscuit. In the UK, biscuits mean cookie, don’t they?”

  
“Told you Shiro. Why would you think it’s a cake? It’s very clearly a biscuit. It’s a small bite-sized treat. That’s the definition of a biscuit.”

  
“It’s got a sponge cake bottom! It’s even in their brand name!”)

  
“Hey Lance, don’t be a stranger.” Shiro called out as Keith said his final goodbyes. Lance gave a mock salute, a grin spread across his face as the screen blacked out. With a sigh, Keith made his way over to his bed and settled himself beside his room-mate. The silence that settled between the two of them was full of content comfortableness and once again, Keith was thankful of his room-mate’s presence in his life.

  
His eyes were drooping with tiredness and he felt the sense of warmth engulf him. He was fumbling with his pajamas when Lance broke the silence, looking at Keith earnestly.

  
“I’m glad we’re friends.” He murmured, clasping his hands behind his head. Keith looked up at him incredulously, stunned and bewildered. He could feel his cheeks burning up as he continued to look at Lance, as if imprinting everything to memory. The exact shade of blue that his eyes were. The shape of his face. How his hair framed said eyes perfectly.

  
The same feelings that had arose during Christmas slowly re-surfaced; that soft tenderness and the _warmth_ that came from talking to Lance. It’s only then that Keith realised something.

  
_You are a really good friend, Lance McClain and I wouldn’t have it any other way_.

  
“Me too.” He replied, a fond smile making its way across his face.

  
_Me too_.

* * *

 

Dreams, Keith realised, were one of the strangest phenomenon in the world.

  
They very often seem to have a plot, with different characters having completely made up conversations. The in-dream characters may often have agendas of their own, with different personalities and with very different fears. And to think that the people that you saw in your dreams were in fact people that you have seen in real life, if albeit for a second.

  
Shiro often had bad nightmares: nightmares of dark rooms and flickering lights. Sometimes in his dreams, robots pursued him. Other times, he was fighting in a gladiator ring. But most times, he had wacky dreams of him trying to tame several kittens or raise them, literally watching their backs so that the small things didn’t get into trouble. (They had a lot of talks about dreams in Keith’s family. It was a good bonding process)

  
Allura usually had much gentler dreams; flowers swaying in the breeze, a garden and the most scenic views. And every so often, she had dreams of being a princess. (Shiro and Keith had teased her about it the moment it came out from her lips because that’s what family did, much to her embarrassment.)

  
Coran’s were… eccentric to say the least. It ranged from him being a Masterchef cook to an explorer of a strange world to an ice-figure skater. (Where that came from, he had no idea)

  
For Keith though, his dreams were rare and few between. He usually forgot them as soon as he woke up and was left with the feeling of a confused tangle of emotions. But he did have some snippets of dreams: a calm one of a lonely shack in the desert, a crackling fire, the feeling of handle bars under his hands, and sometimes himself being a purple fuzzy cat-bat thing.

  
This dream though was one that lingered in his mind and was hailed as one of the weirdest and confusing dreams he ever experienced.

  
_He sat outside of a very familiar shack, eyes trained upon the heavens above him, the stars flickering like a candle in a breeze; its flame wavering and slowly dying down. He stared across the vast expanse of the desert and a sense of loneliness lodged deep in his chest as the wind heaved across the empty plain, blowing dust everywhere. But amongst that sense of loneliness, another feeling pulled at him, urging him to find something. To uncover something._

  
_To bring something._

  
_Before he can think about this bizarre feeling, the scene changed slightly. Suddenly a downpour of rain pelted past him and he was no longer alone. Standing quietly in the pattering rain was Lance, his face tilted towards the sky in bliss._

  
_“Hey Lance! What are you doing?! Get out of the rain!” Keith hollered to the boy, only to be ignored. With a huff, he raced over to the boy to try and get him out of the rain. Drag him back to the shack if he must. He grabbed for Lance’s wrist when the scene changed. (Admittedly at the time, this change made way more sense than when he was awake.)_

  
_He was in a… spaceship (?) sort of thing, wearing an unfamiliar white and red uniform. Lance’s hand was still grasped in his hand firmly._

  
_“We did it… we are a good team…” Lance muttered, a soft smile making its way across his face._

  
_“Uhhh… I guess? I mean, I just pulled you out of the rain. I guess we were kinda good at those co-op Mario kart games or the co-op Call of Duty when we were in Pidge and Hunk’s dorm but that was mostly you, before I got used to the controls.” Keith answered warily, still confused by this entire situation._

_Lance’s brows furrowed in, a look of equal confusion plastering across his scratched up face._

  
_‘What… no, dude. What the heck are you talking about?!”_

  
“ _Being a good team._ ”

  
“ _What?” Lance asked, his eyes narrowed in confusion._

  
_“What?” Keith echoed back indignantly._

  
_A long silence enveloped the two of them as they stared at each other in bewilderment._

  
_“Are you okay? Do I need to get you to the Med Bay?” Lance asked concernedly, placing a hand on Keith’s forehead and the other on his own, his own injuries forgotten. With an impatient swipe of his hand, Keith batted away Lance’s hand from his forehead, shooting him a confused glare._

  
_“I’m fine, Lance. What the hell are you talking about?”_

  
_“Well, you’re talking about stuff that never happened. We’ve been in space for the past few months now, fighting the Galra. Remember, with the huge mechanical robot made of five lion robots called Voltron?”_

  
Huge, mechanical robot?

  
Galra?

  
Voltron?

  
_“And you know, liberating planets that have been under a dictator’s thumb for the past 10,000 years because Zarkon has literally no chill whatsoever and we found a secret organisation that’s rebelling against him and found out that you’re part of that group. Remember anything now?”_

  
_“Um….”_

  
_“Oh yeah and I saved this underwater civilisation from an evil worm thing and Hunk is basically Space Gordon Ramsay-”_

  
_Keith’s head spun as Lance continued to babble endlessly about_ space _and_ robots _and_ aliens _and_ intergalactic war _and_ food goo _: the words bounced inside his skull, each word sending an arc of electricity short circuiting in his brain and rendering his limbs useless. Lance poked at his forehead with concern before he turned back nonchalantly. “Guys, I think I broke Keith!”_

  
_Keith could hear the sound of shuffling and scuffles of shoes against the floor as Lance clicked his fingers in front of Keith’s eyes somewhat impatiently._

  
_“Keith? Come on, Keith.”_

  
_“It’s all gone to shit,_ Lance. _” Keith muttered monotonously as everything came crashing down on him._

  
_“Do you remember who I am?”_

  
_“Of course I remember who you are, Lance? What sort of question is that?”_

 

_“Do you know who I am to you?”_

  
_“My roommate.”_

  
_“Right, he’s not sane at the moment. Guys! Help? Keith? Come on. Focus on me. Keith?”_

  
“Keith?- ”

  
“Keith?- ”

  
Reluctantly, Keith blearily opened his eyes, blinking a few times to rid of the fogginess that came with sleep. He groaned as he flopped over to his side, to find Lance in his blanket peering down at him, the rising sun backlighting Lance with blue, making him seem slightly ethereal. He suppressed a groan; it was too early for this sort of shit. Because while it was a weird dream, it was sleep nonetheless and a full night’s sleep was hard to come by these days.

  
“The flat better be on fire.” Keith mumbled, glaring at Lance tiredly.

  
“The exact opposite, actually.” Lance replied sheepishly. Keith did his best to stare daggers at Lance, for disturbing his sleep for a pointless reason. He was about to roll over again when Lance broke the silence.

  
“Boiler’s broken, I think.”

  
Keith yawned, too tired to even bother hiding it. “Is that why I can’t feel my feet?”

  
“Yeah. That’ll be it.”

  
His brain was still addled with sleep so he just nodded blearily at what Lance said. He blinked again, as if just realising how cold the room was. A small puff of air was only slightly visible in the half lit room.

  
“Why’re you here?” he asked, as if realising that Lance was still in his room.

  
“ _Well_ , when I was younger and our boiler would break, me and my siblings would all pile into the same bed at night and try to keep warm.”

  
“And?”

  
“ _And_ I thought- I thought we could do the same.”

  
There was something in Lance’s tone that made Keith look up at Lance closer. Maybe it was the sound of melancholy of missing his family, or the slight tinge of happiness as he recalled something that his family had done, tinged with nostalgia that made Keith realise he wanted to help Lance in any way he could to maintain that state of happiness.

  
(He blamed his early morning grogginess on these very vague thoughts.)

  
“Is that all?” He asked, lifting the duvet up, allowing the warmth to flood out of his little cocoon.

  
Lance didn’t hesitate to dive beneath the sheets and he shuffled to get comfortable behind Keith. Almost hesitantly, Lance wrapped his long arms around his waist, pulling them even closer together.

  
Keith felt comfortable. He felt safe.

  
“You know, I thought you’d say no.” Lance eventually mumbled out.

  
Keith could already feel the weight of sleep beginning to seep in as he struggled to get coherent words from his mouth.

  
“Why would I say no?”

  
He felt a slight movement behind him, before Lance responded quietly, his voice soft; just like the blue grey light that blurred his room.

  
“I dunno. Not everyone is up for randomly spooning their flatmate.”

  
“It’s fine.” Keith murmured out, snuggling closer to the pillow’s embrace (or was it Lance’s embrace? He was too tired to care nor notice) “I mean, - I don’t mind, do you?”

  
The latino boy snorted, sending a puff of warm air across his neck. “What? Of course not. You’re really warm.”

  
“You’re like my own personal furnace.” Lance murmured, his words slurring slightly. His arms tightened around his waist, drawing him even closer to Keith.

  
_This is something I could get used to…_ Keith thought as he succumbed to sleep’s call, its darkness welcoming and warm and safe.

* * *

  
In the week that it takes their landlord to finally call someone to fix the boiler, they remain huddled together, their limbs tangled together. Every morning when Keith woke up, he could feel this sort of buttery, fluffy feeling lodged deep in his chest at the thought of cuddling with Lance. He always remained in Lance’s embrace, too content to move.

  
_This is something I could get used to_ rang in Keith’s head, like a windchime in a light breeze. Because he enjoyed the warmth that now came with Lance, the comfort, the late night jokes, the feel of his hands on his waist and the soft breaths that tickled Keith’s neck when Lance had fallen asleep.

  
So when Lance finally left, he can’t help but mourn the loss and the warmth; thinking about how empty his bed now felt without Lance there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What’s that faraway look of wanting something but not being able to have it?” 
> 
> “Pining.” 
> 
> We were all thinking it. They’re awful, oblivious cinnamon rolls but I love them and they have to be protected at all costs.
> 
> So, if you haven’t watched Planet Earth 2, go watch it! Honestly, it’s easily one of the best documentaries I’ve seen. My friends and I had this running commentary to it, but they were mostly on their phones, which peeved me off so much.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! Sorry for the late update. A levels have not been kind and my mind was not really in the state to do anything. 
> 
> I tried updating yesterday, but all the stuff that I wrote as a last minute edit vanished when my screen froze.... That was so annoying...
> 
> To avoid butchering the Korean language, anything said in Korean will be in bold.
> 
> Also ATTENTION: this chapter does go into description of Keith's panicking and stress out. It's not a panic attack (because most of it is based of my own stressings for the past fortnight or so, and I don't have panic attacks) but if you are sensitive to this sort of stuff, there will be 3 asterisks underlined and put in bold to mark the beginning and end. Please stay safe.
> 
> Thank you everyone who gave this fic a chance! It really made my days when I was feeling particularly down and has encouraged me to write so many times. Thank you again!  
> Feel free to give criticisms! I'm still trying to improve!

The silence that enveloped the room was stifling: beating down on the four students like a desert sun, baking the scorched ground.

 

No one dared utter a word: two of them locked in a deadlock while the other two watched from the side-lines, anticipation and a degree of apprehension whirling around like tumbleweeds.

 

Someone _had_ to break at some point.

 

Keith smirked at Lance, one arm hanging loosely by his side as he lazily held up his pieces; the two gambles he was taking. Lance glared at him, eyes narrowed and lips pursed, fingers twitching slightly.

 

Keith tracked every single movement that Lance made, refusing to back down from this challenge.

 

It was just them; set apart at a distance, glaring at each other, waiting for the other to crumble. To mess up. 

 

“Bull. Shit.” Each word was enunciated carefully, each word clipped and curt.

 

Keith made a nonchalant noise, looking down at his two playing cards briefly before he turned his attention back to the still glaring Latino boy across him.

 

“You sure about that?” Keith asked as the corners of his lips pulled up even further, his eyebrow raised sceptically. He looked he was about to retort when Pidge groaned into her hands, collapsing wholeheartedly onto the coffee table.

 

“Doesn’t matter if he’s not sure.” Pidge grumbled quickly, as she dragged a hand down her face, displacing her large lenses from her nose before she ruffled her already mussed up hair in annoyance. “He called bullshit, so he has to follow through.”

 

Hunk sighed quietly in relief beside her, much to Keith’s amusement. Because while he enjoyed riling Lance up, this façade was going on for too long.

 

Before he could protest, Pidge leant over the table and deftly plucked his two cards from his grasp, earning a shocked cry from Keith.

 

“I’m sure anyway,” Lance replied indifferently, crossing his arms across his chest. The easy grin that was on Lance’s face quickly broadened out into a smug and coy smirk as Pidge flipped the two cards to reveal his two cards, which _weren’t_  two nines.

 

Keith let out an exasperated groan before he started pulling the pile of cards that had amassed throughout the eight rounds unwillingly towards him. (No,he wasn’t sulking. Not at all. Because that would suggest that he was moping. He wasn’t sulking. He was just thinking how annoying Lance was and plotting at how to get back at Lance. But Lance looked really happy with his victory that it made said plotting kind of hard.)

 

Hunk whistled in appreciation as Keith, slowly but surely, sifted through basically the entire pack of cards, balancing them neatly in his hand.

 

“I was sure he was telling the truth.”

 

It helped that in his family, he had the _best_ poker face. Coran never seemed to get the fact that you had to lie to win; often just pulling the pile of cards towards him instead of saying anything, a defeated look on his face. Allura just giggled once she put down her cards before trying to restrain her ever growing smile. Shiro had so many tells; from the slight worrying of his bottom lip, the occasional tapping on the table and the constant shifting of his eyes, bright with alert and wariness. It was something that Keith had reminded him time and time again that he wasn’t a spy and therefore didn’t need to look so cautious.

 

(“Shiro, you don’t need to look so shifty every time we play cards.”

 

“Hey, I’ll have you know, I’m taking note of my surroundings, measuring up my opponents, figuring out their weak points. That way, it’s easier to bring them down.

 

“Again. We’re playing a _game of cards_. You’re not in a life or death situation in, like, an arena, for example.”

 

“Hey! I would have you know, I’d probably be the best fighter there!”

 

“…Debatable…”)

 

“Same.” Pidge muttered, looking skeptically towards Lance. It was a look that Keith recognised from his few interactions with Pidge when they were talking about conspiracy theories. It was the same look as the two of the stared keenly at a grainy snapshot of a UFO or article about another Mothman sighting. Keith bit back a scoff.

 

 _I’m pretty sure Lance isn’t a cryptid, Pidge._ He thought dryly as he continued to sift through the cards, arranging them in a fan.

 

“Anyway, Keith is _so_ easy to read.” Lance said easily, his gaze sweeping towards Keith as he said so.

 

Both Hunk and Pidge looked at each other, silent messages being passed between the two technical geniuses before they frowned, looking at Lance with disbelief. Hunk quickly looked over to him, did a brief check of Keith’s body language and of his current expression before returning his gaze to Lance.

 

“Uh, no he’s not.” He said firmly. “No offence man, but your poker face is _creepily_ good.” Hunk said, turning his gaze back to Keith.

 

 “Um… None taken?”

 

“Hunk’s right. You don’t give _anything_ away.” Pidge piped up, waving her hand which held her all of her cards towards Keith in a wide arching sweep: in the process, revealing all of her cards to Keith. He bit back a snicker as Pidge leant in, a mischievous glint glimmering in her eyes as a familiar impish grin took hold. “Teach me your ways.” She whispered in a conspiratorial manner.

 

“Excuse you.” Lance retorted in mock outrage as he waved his remaining two cards deftly. “ _I’m_ the one winning.” He leant back in his chair as he pointed in Keith’s direction with a flourish. “And _he-_ He does not have a good poker face. He has so many tells.”

 

_Well, that’s new._

 

“I do?”

 

“Ummm. No, he doesn’t.”

 

Upon the other three’s collective gaze, Lance squirmed in his seat, sliding further down his seat like an embarrassed child. His gaze flitted between the three before landing on Keith. They remained locked in gaze for a second too long before Lance looked down at the table. The tip of Keith’s ears started to burn but for what reasons baffled him.

 

“You do this _Thing_ when you’re lying.” He mumbled petulantly, on hand gesturing mindlessly as the other traced the whorls in the wooden table.

 

“A _Thing?_ What _Thing?_ _”_ He parroted back, cocking his head to the side.

 

“Yeah, Lance? What _Thing?”_ Hunk asked, innocence slicking over his words like oil on water. Twin shit eating grins settled on the two geniuses faces as they waited for Lance’s answer.

 

Lance made a sound of annoyance and pouted, averting his gaze to the wall.

 

“It’s just a _Thing.”_ With a dramatic shrug, his gaze settled back on Keith, those cerulean eyes pinning him to his seat.

 

“You do this-” Lance paused, and pulled a thoughtful face as he hummed in thought. “I can’t explain it, but whenever you’re lying about what you’re putting down, you do this… I dunno. Just watch him.” Lance insisted, collapsing into his chair with a huff before he gathered his cards back into his hand.

 

Keith turned his attention back to his cards as he felt his cheeks flare up in a flush. Because, _heck,_ why was he paying so much attention to him? And why was his heart swelling with pride? He should have been frustrated that he had to pick up that many cards or even that his supposedly fool-proof poker face, one that he had spent years fashioning, had been ripped apart in mere seconds.

 

Instead, he felt the overwhelming sense of pride for his room-mate. And it made him feel slightly giddy.

 

_Because he’s paying attention to me?_

 

Hunk put down his cards, completely oblivious to the warring thoughts in his mind.

 

_Let’s try something out…_

 

“One two.” Keith placed his card on top of Lance’s, shuffling through his cards to accommodate for the now missing King of Hearts. From his periphery, he could see Lance glaring a hole at him before the Latino boy briefly peered over to his two other friends, expectantly looking at them.

 

Unfortunately for Lance, the other two didn’t seem to pick up on his deception and Hunk placed a handful of cards face down on the table.

 

“Are you _serious?_ ” Lance _squawked_ in disbelief, pointing an accusing finger at Keith, who blinked owlishly at Lance. “He was _lying!”_

 

Pidge looked apprehensively towards Keith, her lips pressed into a taut line. “You were?”

 

 _“Yes!_ ” Lance cried out, throwing his arms into the air before he clawed his hair in frustration. “I don’t know why since you _literally_ have half the deck, but you were lying, right?”

 

Keith gave a saccharine smile as he nodded. His test was a success. Lance groaned with exasperation, flopping back in his seat after he shot the Hunk and Pidge a look that said: “Are you stupid?”

 

Hunk gasped, whirling round on Keith and sent him a shocked look. “ _What?_ I trusted you, Keith.” He spluttered out, clutching his chest in what Keith knew was mock betrayal.

 

He shrugged and sent Hunk an apologetic look. “Sorry, man.” Keith turned his attention back to Lance, smirking smugly as he leant on one elbow. “Besides, I wanted to test something.”

 

“Test?” Lance spluttered, eyes blowing even wider. “What the hell were-”

 

“ _Alright!_ ” Pidge cried out. She sent a scathing look to the two boys before she huffed, dragging a small hand across her face. “Can we get through a single round _without_ you two holding up the game for ten minutes every time?”

 

Keith thought that he heard her saying something along the lines of “Your banter with each other disgusts me. Leave the room if you’re going to (flirt) with each other.” But then again, she had just shoved a large peanut butter cookie into her mouth, so Keith couldn’t know for sure.

 

“Yeah.” Hunk echoed, but without the sharpness that Pidge’s voice held. He wagged his finger to the other two as if he were a mother gently lecturing her misbehaving children. “We get it. You spend _way_ too much time together. Stop rubbing it in.” As he finished his sentence, the corner of his lips lifted in a slight smile and he held a sage look in his eyes.

 

“I-” At that, Lance’s brows furrowed in, his mouth opening and closing like a fish, as he tested the words on his tongue. He eventually slipped into a silence as his eyes dimmed slightly, churning with whatever silent thought he was thinking about. He happened to be looking a lot at Keith. Keith pointedly didn’t look at Lance, lest his face burst into flames.

 

As Hunk groaned about the cards that he had to pick up, Keith scanned his row of cards. He couldn’t help the slight tug of his lips, imperceptible to anyone, as he found four queens. Even though he had a majority of the cards, Hunk and Pidge still had a fair amount so the chances of him having all of any suit was still a surprise.

 

“Right. I’m putting forward 30 seconds to call a bluff. Because frankly, interrupting after 2 minutes of game-time is just ridiculous.” Pidge said diplomatically, shooting a pointed look towards Lance, whose eyes were still clouded over in thought. “Did you get that, Lance?” She asked with a raised brow. Lance nodded mutely, but his eyes said otherwise.

 

“I don’t think he would get it even if it was a brick that was thrown at him. Like a really obvious brick.” Hunk whispered to Keith, leaning in closer. With a scoff, Keith laughed openly, his eyes crinkling as laughter bubbled out of him.

 

What Keith failed to pick up was how Hunk looked at Keith and Lance, a calculated gleam in his eyes, flicking between the two boys seated across from each other and smiled knowingly.

* * *

 

“I don’t think I can write anymore. I think my eyes have been permanently damaged. They hurt so much.” Lance complained as he fished his finished essay from the printer. With his essay now in his grip, he collapsed forward like a flower wilting in a time-lapse, breathing out loudly through his nose. As he leant forwards, he inadvertently pushed a stack of papers away from him; ploughing a path for his hands to stretch across, like ploughing the snow off the path to the house.

 

“You drama queen. You’re fine.” Keith replied callously, ignoring the mock outraged cry from Lance.

 

Unimpressed, Keith pushed the stack of papers back towards Lance before he went back to his work. He quickly jotted something down from his _Evolution of the Universe_ book, highlighting the necessary passage before placing a coloured sticky tab on the corner of the book.

 

Not before Lance started to flap his finished essay in front of Keith’s nose, whining for him to take it. He was like a cat; a really demanding cat that demanded to have its needs cared for. Or even a baby. Except that cats and babies had a reason. Lance did _not._ Lance was basically a grown man, and therefore warranted no such doting behaviour.

 

“Why do I need to read it again? I’ve got my own work to be doing.” Keith replied without looking up, taking a long sip of his coffee.

 

“ _Because_ you’re a decent person and a good friend?” Lance tried, lifting his head up from the table.

 

“Good try. Not gonna happen.” Keith muttered back before he marked another page with a green sticky note.

 

“Urh. I’m too tired at the moment and all the words look weird. I don’t even know if I spelt quantum right. For all I know, I might have written Qatar. I just need a second opinion on it. Please, Keith?” Lance inquired again.

 

Keith looked up from his page to see that Lance was being genuinely serious. His jaw was set tightly, his mouth set in a determined line, even though it didn’t extend to his bloodshot eyes. The fact that Lance was clearly distressed somehow made Keith feel oddly… _heavy._ Guilty, maybe? He felt compelled to do something to help Lance return to his cheerful demeanour.  He sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose.

 

“Yeah, fine. I’ll do it.” He said finally, exasperation clearly colouring his tone. Lance raised a brow at him as Keith looked on indifferently.

 

“Just let me do my stuff first. I’m not done yet.” Keith muttered, returning his attention back to his notes.

 

Apparently satisfied with this response, Lance gave a tired smile and a huffed out a quiet thanks before he pushed himself from the desk and stretched his arms above his head, groaning with satisfaction when his shoulders clicked loudly. Shoulder knot sorted, Lance padded over to the sofa and threw himself wholeheartedly onto it, causing the rickety thing to creak under his weight.

 

Keith grimaced in sympathy as he looked at the piles of rubbish that had accumulated over the week; trash littering the area surrounding the bin and the multiple scrunched up papers or out of ink pens that had been chucked in the general direction of the bin.

 

For the past week or so now, Keith and Lance had killed their social lives. And Keith wasn’t even joking. He couldn’t remember the date of when he last stepped out of the flat. It was a while: that’s all that he knew.

 

He couldn’t help but think: How did one socialise? What was he _supposed_ to wear _besides_ by tracksuit bottoms and pyjamas _?_   He hadn’t had any human contact except Lance and Shiro, but even that was stretching it far. Shiro wasn’t really there in person and he might as well have been a figment of Keith’s overly tired mind. Oh, and the delivery man. But usually, Lance answered the door whilst Keith remained either in Lance’s room, his own room or the dining room table working.

 

A quiet silence filled the space between the two boys; the only sounds filling the space was the scratching of Keith’s pen as it scribbled something down between the margins and the TV that had been turned on when Lance first sat on the sofa.

 

After an indiscernible amount of time, Keith realised that he couldn’t stay at the desk forever. At some point, he had to go to the toilet. And that moment was now. There was only so much liquid that his bladder could hold before it exploded. And the relentless stream of coffee that had been sent his way certainly did not help him at all.

 

Reluctantly, Keith pushed his way out from the cluttered desk and lumbered his way to the bathroom. To find Lance asleep on the sofa; his breaths soft and deep and his eyes twitching under his eyelids. He used an arm to pillow his head, cradled in the crook of his elbow as the other hung limply at his side, fingers just brushing the ground.

 

He looked comfortable and sweet. And seeing Lance in such a vulnerable state made something Keith’s stomach feel almost giddy. It made Keith want to protect him and left him feeling even calmer than before. He smiled down tenderly at his dorm mate before another thought entered his mind.

 

_How long has it been since we spoke?_

 

Slightly bemused at this, Keith checked his watch. Because _surely_ not _that_ much time had passed since he had last spoken to Lance. Only to find that it was fast approaching 1:17, meaning that he had been studying for nearly 2 and a half hours.

 

_Just because I’m working doesn’t mean Lance should sleep uncomfortably._

 

With that thought in mind, Keith entered his bedroom and rummaged in his closet. After several minutes of chucking random miscellaneous articles of clothing out of his closet, he found a well-worn red checkered blanket. He padded back to where Lance was sleeping before he unfurled the blanket, gently laying it over Lance.

 

Instantly after he had managed to tuck the edges of the blanket around Lance’s sleeping form, a small content sigh rumbled out as Lance’s lips quirked up slightly. He nuzzled deeper into the depths of the warm blanket, taking a deep inhale causing the tassels to waft up gently around his face.

 

At the sight, Keith’s heart felt satisfied but he also felt the aberrant feeling of comfort of looking at Lance. While he had always felt comfortable around Lance, this comfortableness was more than that. _This_ comfortableness was weird in the sense that he wanted to curl up beside Lance and hold him tightly. He wanted to linger longer by Lance’s side and snuggle closer to him, like they did in their shared bed experiences.

 

It was an oddly jarring emotion that left Keith baffled. With a shake of his head, Keith promptly turned off the TV and the lights that were overhead Lance before he left for the toilet and later retreated back to his seat at his desk. The moment he picked up his pen, he felt nothing but content satisfaction and tenderness for Lance.

 

 

Keith woke up to Lance shaking him by the shoulder. He blearily opened his eyes and winced at the brightness of the room as he noticed that sunlight now streamed unhindered through the windows: that surprisingly didn’t have the curtains drawn across.

 

He groggily pushed himself from the surface of the table and winced. His neck was currently suffering a horrible knot of pain.

 

“Rise and shine.” Lance whispered kindly, his eyes now much brighter than they had been several hours ago and crinkled as he greeted Keith.

 

With a groan, Keith dragged a hand down his face, trying to rub away the sleep.

 

“What time is it?”

 

“About 7:55.”

 

Keith made an acknowledging hum before he looked at the stacks of papers that he had still yet to highlight. But before he could pick up his pen again, Lance caught at his hand, hindering him from reaching forward. Lance’s brows furrowed closer as he meticulously inspected Keith’s features. It was hard to look away. Keith could feel the huffs of feather soft breaths fanning across his face and he could see that Lance’s eyes were a much lighter shade of blue as he had originally thought. More like cornflower blue rather than navy blue.

 

 There was a small part of his brain that somehow managed to scream about the proximity of Lance’s face to his own, and he felt the tips of his ears flush red. But he maintained his steely gaze towards Lance, his brow raised in question.

 

“What time did you stop studying last night?” Lance asked nothing but concern laced in his voice. Keith shrugged indifferently before he suppressed a yawn.

 

“Four maybe? Maybe later? I kind of lost track of time.”

 

Lance sighed in disapproval before he tugged Keith up. He lightly pushed Keith forward, despite Keith’s weak protests.

 

“Nope, not hearing it.” Lance muttered without any animosity, tugging Keith to his bed. Realising that Lance wasn’t going to convinced otherwise unless Keith fell asleep, he reluctantly let Lance pull himself closer as Lance slipped into Keith’s bed, becoming pliant in Lance’s hold.

 

“I’ve got work to do…” Keith muttered in between yawns. At this point, his periphery vision was already blurring and blackening as the lull of sleep called to him, enticing in its prospect. Lance tutted behind him, a slight chuckle resounding behind him.

 

“Don’t worry about it. Just sleep. I’ll make breakfast later.” Lance quipped softly to which Keith simply hummed in response, already too far in the grips of sleep to answer coherently. He didn’t even question why Lance would have gotten into his bed in the first place but all he knew was that Lance was incredibly warm and surprisingly comforting to hold onto. In his last dregs of his consciousness, he rolled over and burrowed slightly closer to Lance, gripping at his shirt loosely.

 

Within ten minutes of snuggling, Keith had fallen asleep; his breaths languid and fingers latched gently in Lance’s shirt. With the utmost care, Lance slowly pried himself off from Keith as he slowly padded out of the room and looked back, with a tenderness in his eyes that spoke volumes of what he felt, even though he didn’t know it at the time.

* * *

 

Shiro always did tell him that he needed to calm down to get things done. Something that Keith wished he knew how to do more efficiently. Because it’s one thing to hear someone tell you to calm down or read a book about how to calm you down and actually acting on that advice, which is made especially hard in an emotionally charged situation, when emotions were strung high and crashing against the sides of your skull; bullets ricocheting in an endless barrage of pain and frustration.

*******

His fingers were restless; flicking and tapping out an agitated rhythm, keeping in time with the thumping of his erratic heartbeat. Stress clung to Keith like a chokehold, slowly but surely cutting off his ability to breathe. Breathing was no longer the smooth motion of inhaling and exhaling. It now felt as if every breath that he took, it was being weighted down.

 

Down. Down. Down.

 

 He could feel an invisible force squeezing at his heart as phantom pains shot through his chest. Everything was pivoting and swirling around him in a stream of confusing colours.

 

His senses were being overworked, overloaded and overwhelmed. The smell of his coffee that usually never failed to calm him down left him feeling nauseous; the sight of it made him want to gag. Words floated off the page in an incomprehensible scribble. He could read it, but none of it made sense. Even his fingertips were becoming numb, each second passing left them feeling dead and heavy.

 

The room was slowly enclosing around him, the walls squeezing ever closer every time he closed his eyes. Strangely, he was starting to feel light-headed despite the heavy feeling in his chest; he felt like he was partially floating, left untethered and unanchored, a balloon filling with helium.

 

He gripped his head in concentration, pushing down the stewing stress that threatened to erupt out of him.

 

He wasn’t in control.

 

Because everything was coming too _quickly_. And he was pathetically unprepared…

 

“Keith.” Someone said to his right, jerking Keith out of his spiralling emotions. He looked up uneasily, eyes wide and dry from tiredness.

 

“What was that? Where’d Hunk and Pidge go?” He asked hoarsely, blowing the stray strands from his eyes.

 

“Home to drop their stuff off. We’re gonna go grab something to eat- take a break from all of _this.”_ Lance said softly, gesturing to the fortress of books that was trapping Keith in.

 

Keith gnawed at his bottom lip, flicking between all of the unread passages that had accumulated besides him. He _needed_ those grades to get that internship of that company. Because he wasn’t going to waste that opportunity; the opportunity that may very well be the door to his future.

 

“I- I think I’ll give this one a miss.” He said after a few seconds of thought. He purposefully didn’t look at Lance.

 

“Nah, come on. You need a break. We all do.” Lance pressed on brightly, tugging the book insistently. He finally managed to pry the book from Keith’s fingers, a small smile still spread across his face. Upon seeing this, Keith’s mind flurried with an array of different sharp remarks, his mind’s eye tinged with the barest hues of scarlet.

 

_Why does he not understand that he needs to leave me the fuck alone?_

_Annoying-_

_Stop it!_

 

“Stop it, Lance. I said _no._ I don’t want to go.” He said tightly, before snatching the book that Lance had taken. He struggled to rein in his emotions and he could feel them frothing under the surface. About to explode.

 

“Keith. You’re over-working yourself. You ne-”

 

 _And he just_ keeps _on talking._

_Leave me alone!_

_SHUT UP!!_

 

And all he saw was red.

 

“ _Stop_ telling me what I _need_ to do!” Keith yelled back with a slam of his hands, his emotions rushing out of him like an erupting volcano; anger which couldn’t be quelled by any force except time.  He could feel some semblance of his rational brain return now that his emotions were no longer being pent up. But its voice was small in the turbulence that was his frustration, anger and stress.

 

“I don’t care if _you_ don’t want to take any of this seriously-”

 

_What are you saying?!_

_Stop it!_

_You don’t mean any of this!_

 

Lance physically recoiled back as if he had been burned, his eyes wide with unconcealed hurt. He froze where he was, his hand still outstretched as his face contorted into one of crushing shock and loss.

 

“-But I do. I have a scholarship to worry about. This- this is _it_ for me. I _need_ to do well.”

 

“Keith-”

 

“Stop.” Keith whispered, running a hand through his hair and accidentally snapping the hairband. He focused on the pain as it snapped against his hand because it was a distraction from the pain that was lodged in his chest, like a shard of glass.

 

“Just stop. If you want to mess around and fuck up _your_ exams, you can do it on your own. But I’m- _I’m trying to study.”_

 

An overwhelming silence swallowed the two. Quiet except for the harsh breaths that were pushed out from Keith’s mouth.

 

Keith looked up at Lance, and found Lance staring down at him, frozen in place. Keith’s hands were still shaking; one quivering like a leaf under the table and the other in his hair.

 

“Are you leaving or not?” he snapped out vehemently.

 

Lance inhaled sharply, his eyes shining with unshed tears before he schooled his face into that of an impassive and neutral face. His eyes took on an icy glint before he stiffly made his way out of the room, like a robot.

 

Even as Lance left the flat with a resounding bang, Keith remained frozen on his seat, glaring down at his textbooks with clenched fists, trembling as his nails left crescent shapes in his palm. Even 30 minutes after Lance had left, Keith stayed in the same position, hunched over his work and hands in his hair.

*******

He still couldn’t breathe.

 

And he very well may have just destroyed the one thing that had been keeping him afloat.

* * *

 

**Pidge (10:46)**

  * I’m not even sure I want to know what happened.
  * Lance is at our place. He’s become our house hobo.
  * He’s acting like a complete drama queen. More so than usual.
  * I take back what I said before
  * What did you do?!?!



**(seen at 10:47)**

**Keith (11:15)**

  * I just lost it
  * Lost my temper
  * Work and scholarship stuff



**(seen at 11:17)**

**Pidge (11:18)**

  * I want to say that’s not a legit excuse and then give you the cold shoulder
  * But you’re probably hurting just as much as he is
  * I mean that’s expected of a break up



**(seen at 11:19)**

**Keith (11:27)**

  * What the actual hell!?!
  * WE’RE NOT DATING!



**(seen at 11:29)**

**Pidge (11:30)**

  * ….
  * You really don’t get it, do you?
  * Much stupidity. Much amazed
  * I guess the saying “Birds of the same feather flock together” really _is_ true
  * How are you guys my friends again? I built my own computer in year 9 and you guys still can’t piece _this_ together?!
  * Just wow



**(seen at 11:32)**

**Keith (11:33)**

  * Pidge…Please? Not the time.
  * I just….
  * How do I fix this?



**(seen at 11:34)**

**Pidge (11:37)**

  * **…**
  * Sorry, didn’t think that through very well.
  * But jokes aside
  * Honestly, just apologise.
  * I don’t even think he’s angry at you. Hurt? Yeah. In shock? You bet. Miserable as hell? Heck yeah. But definitely not angry
  * Just… give it some time and thought.



**(seen at 11:38)**

**Keith (11:38)**

  * …
  * Thanks Pidge
  * Never pegged you as the sentimental type



**(seen at 11:39)**

**Pidge (11:40)**

  * Who said anything about being sentimental? More like anyone who messes with me or my friends are in for a nasty shock. Think of this as more of a … warning, if you like. But only because you’re more tolerable than the others.



**(seen at 11:42)**

**Keith (11: 42)**

  * Thanks?
  * Note taken.



**(seen at 11:43)**

 

 Keith didn’t call Lance that day. Or the next. Because despite what Pidge said, Keith was worried that he had burned that bridge down altogether and that he had hurt the relationship with his dorm-mate in ways that he couldn’t comprehend.

 

 With an aching heart, he realised just how empty his life was without Lance. It was horribly quiet in the house nowadays. Just more silence to fill up with his curse words at himself, and the occasional thumps as his books were swept off the table onto the floor. Because it was more than just the emptiness where Lance was. It was now a physical ache inside of him that coiled in his stomach.

 

He just wanted it to go back to the way it was before: the easy banter that they had, the movie marathons that usually ended with their legs and blankets in a tangle, the laughter at the meals while watching re-runs, the genuine soft smiles when they had their late night talks, the warmth that was Lance _._

 

He wanted it all back.

* * *

 

Four days had passed since Keith and Lance’s argument. (Was it really an argument though?) Four days of absolute agonising silence and guilt that ate away at Keith. In a complete paradoxical chance, the sun was out and shining when Keith left the exam hall.

 

 He glared at the sun (Yes, Shiro. He looked _directly_ at the sun. Sue him) and muttered a faint ‘what the hell’, before he trudged down the steps. Because the world _really_ just hated him like that. Grudgingly, he wondered why it couldn’t have been chucking it down with rain, like it does in movies. Instead he would have to endure the obnoxious crowd as they stormed out from their houses, revelling in the sunshine like meerkats or British school girls and their non-existent sun, trying to get as tanned as possible.

 

_Lance would around about this time make some pop culture reference. What was it again? “Hello Starshine! The Earth says hello!” or something weird like that._

 

A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth but it quickly made way for a grimace.

 

He should have been ecstatic. The exam went amazingly well; with some nice questions and with a good 5 minutes to spare until the end of the exam. Yet Keith felt strangely hollow and worn.

 

He was about to cross the road when he quickly stopped, his gaze averting to a familiar mop of brown hair a few metres away. Before he could think, his voice acted against his will.

 

“Lance?”

 

Lance whipped round, his back straightening as if he had been shocked, promptly before nearly colliding with a lamp-post. He squawked unceremoniously with flailing limbs, slowly trying to regain his breath as he clutched at his chest.

 

It was ridiculously adorable that Keith couldn’t help but smile a little at his dorm-mate’s antics.

 

“Hey.”

 

“Hey.” Lance parroted back, his eyes still blown wide.

 

For the first time that Keith had known Lance, a silence enveloped them like a bubble. But not the comfortable and content silence that first appeared when they first met, but the silence that was reserved for strangers/ acquaintances when the common topics of the weather and traffic had been used up.

 

It was excruciatingly uncomfortable. Keith couldn’t help but rub his arms, as if trying to will away the goosebumps that had appeared there.

 

“How… was your exam?” he asked slowly, testing it out on his tongue. He gave a small smile to try and alleviate the tension slightly. But if Lance’s attempt to hide his wince was any indication at all, it had only served in making this interaction more awkward.

 

_Great job, Keith. You’re really good at this, aren’t you?_

 

“Good.” He replied mildly, rubbing the back of his neck. He pulled an equally tight smile before he asked how Keith’s exam went. With another monotonous reply, they lapsed back into silence.

 

The silence didn’t help quell the warring thoughts in his head or even the internal shrieking that wailed inside his ears.

 

_Say something, you idiot! You caused this mess!_

_Where should I start?!_

_Is there an ‘Exit’ or even ‘skip’ option here? Can we not just have it back to normal?_

_Why isn’t he saying anything?!_

_What did Pidge say? Start slow. Just apologise._

_Just apologise._

_Apologize._

 

“I’m going in-” Lance pointed to a nearby building block, looking somewhat relieved yet melancholic smile.

 

“I’m really sorry!” Keith blurted out, looking at Lance doggedly with a determined glare. Bewildered, Lance’s eyes widened as his jaw hung open slightly. He continued to plough on, ignoring Lance’s silence as he was afraid that his confidence might waver if he left it for too long.

 

“I didn’t mean it. It was-”

 

“Really fucking shitty?” Lance offered with a small smile. He looked particularly vulnerable, with his hands stuffed into his pockets.

 

Returning the small smile, Keith chuckled humourlessly. The air around them lessened slightly so it wasn’t as tense, for which Keith was thankful for.

 

 “I know you take it all seriously. I do. I'm— I'm sorry I said you didn't. And— ” Keith took a deep breath to steady his now racing heart, which felt heavy with regret and guilt.

 

Now that Keith was staring at Lance from up close, he could tell that the few days that they had been apart had been tough on Lance as well. His clothes were carelessly thrown on, deep set crinkles that looked like he might have slept in these clothes. Bags the colour of bruises hung under his usually bright eyes, now dim with fatigue and slightly puffy.

 

He looked like and probably felt like shit. And it was his fault.

 

“I'm just really, really—" His voice cracked as he felt his voice become heavy with emotion and suddenly he found that he couldn’t look at Lance’s stunned face. “ _Really_ -sorry, Lance. Not talking to you has been really –”

 

“Really fucking shitty? Same.” Lance supplied, an amused smile creeping across his face. At that, Keith couldn’t help but laugh as a weight was taken off of his shoulders. Because _damn,_ he missed this so _much_.

 

“So we’re _good.”_ With a blinding grin, all white teeth and sparkling blue eyes, Lance tugged Keith towards him in a tight hug, squeezing the breath out of Keith. He was just as warm as he remembered from their shared bed experience and his smell was just as familiar: the smell of freshly washed linen, sea breeze shampoo and mint shower gel. Hesitantly, Keith wrapped his arms around Lance’s lanky frame before he settled into the crook of Lance’s neck and took in a deep inhale.

 

It was a comfort to think that Lance wasn’t angry at him, despite him being acting really douche-y towards Lance. (That reprimanding voice sounded a lot like a sarcastic Pidge, complete with the facepalm and eye rolling.) He savoured the moment a little longer, before Lance pulled away slightly, just to face Keith better.

 

“I probably shouldn't have pushed that much. Boundaries and everything - I'm working on it.” He offered a remorseful smile before he continued. “But sometimes I worry about you, man. You have like _zero_ chill. Sometimes you need to just-” Lance sighed, raking a hand through his unruly hair before he pulled away completely from Keith.

 

Looking at Lance’s face now, Keith could immediately tell the differences between a few moments ago. _This_ Lance was like calm water, the sun glittering off the surface of the sea and the soft breeze that soothed the face. Then something shifted in the way that Keith saw Lance.

 

Love, unlike what films depicted, was crazy and unscripted. It wasn’t a sudden realisation that hit Keith but as he stared at Lance’s face, it slowly clicked into place, like puzzle pieces that had been accumulating over the past few months or so. When he finally realised it, rather than a panicking feeling, it settled comfortably over him like a well-worn jumper.

 

Lance; who smiled as brightly and as whole heartedly as when he leapt into new scenarios. Lance; who had to sleep in complete darkness but was perfectly happy with music thumping in his ears. Lance; who could dance and shimmy like it was nobody’s business. Lance; who was so incredibly amiable, that anyone could easily approach him and he would speak to them as if they had known each other for years and not just mere seconds. Lance; whose aim never missed yet despite all of his talents, still doubted himself at times. Lance; who he loved.

 

“Have some fun, you know?” Lance’s voice threaded through his inner revelation and a slight blush took hold of Keith’s cheeks as he looked at Lance through the lens of a different colour.

 

“Are you going back- Because it’s _fine_ if you do, I just-” Keith reluctantly said, looking to Hunk and Pidge’s apartment block. He couldn’t help but feel slightly wistful; having only just realised his feelings for his dorm mate, only for him to leave.

 

A wide grin split across his tanned face like the sun breaking through clouds. Lance looped an arm through Keith’s own before he marched off with Keith in tow, stumbling to keep up with the long legged Lance.

 

“Nah. I’m coming home.”

 

Never had home sounded more inviting.

* * *

 

Life continued as normal. With their exams out of the way, Keith managed to spend more and more time in the apartment. Meaning more and more time to spend with his dorm mate. They fell back into routine; late nights talking, watching re-runs and failed cooking attempts. Occasionally Pidge and Hunk joined in their antics, bringing a multitude of video games and much exasperation and horror on the part of Hunk with Keith’s abysmal cooking.

 

(“NOO!!! The cookie dough is BURNT!!! IT’S INEDIBLE! THEY’RE LIKE BRICKS!”

 

“That’s what I said before….”

 

“Lance… no.”

 

“I said slightly gooey, you rube! Does this look slightly gooey to you?!”

“No.”

 

“You bet your bottom dollar it isn’t!”

 

“Lance… Is Hunk really just Gordon Ramsay in disguise?”

 

“Nah. He’s just really passionate about cooking. Don’t mind him. That and he watches _way_ too much Kitchen Nightmares.”

“If it ain’t right, it ain’t coming out of this kitchen, people!”

 

“Remind me never to get on Hunk’s bad side…”)

 

Keith went about his day as normally as one could when he constantly lived with his crush. Contrary to the popular trope, Keith didn’t brood about whether his crush would reciprocate or if it would jeopardise their friendship. Well… much anyway. Probably no more than the average person. While it would have been nice to have gotten together with Lance, he found comfort instead in how their friendship turned out. That’s what he told himself anyway.

 

He didn’t particularly want to ruin this friendship for something that was probably one-sided anyway.

 

“I’ve handed in my dissertation. It’s over. Done. Out of my hands. **I’m so glad that it’s _finally_ over! **Thank fuck for that.” Keith declared as he entered through his bedroom door, to find Lance sprawled over his bed; looking at him blankly with a lopsided smile curving his lips and a neglected comic book perched on his lap.

 

“I swear, that dissertation was the death of me. So many late nights went into that thing.” Keith went on, kicking off his shoes carelessly towards his bookshelf. Lance still had that glazed and lopsided smile, as if he were remembering something particularly happy.

 

“Are you even listening to me?” Keith asked as he flung his rucksack towards his desk, now clear of all the papers that had once resided there before he padded his way over to his bed, batting Lance’s legs to make room for him. As if by second nature, he lied down on his bed and nestled on Lance’s lap; fidgeting before he found the perfect position.

 

“Of course.” Lance replied, even though Keith was pretty sure he was lying. He could _hear_ it in his voice.

 

 He reminded himself to savour as many of these moments as possible: with their graduation looming on the horizon. The realisation that all of _this_ was coming to an end soon left Keith feeling restless and slightly hollow. Lance now had a place in his heart; he couldn’t imagine not being able to walk into a room to find Lance sprawled, a book covering his face or Lance’s ridiculous facial regime. Not being able to taste Lance’s cooking again. Not being able to dance awkwardly at whatever song was being played from the radio or from Lance’s extensive music collection. (If he was being honest, the awkwardly bad dancing was on his own part, not Lance’s. Because _boy_ could that boy dance. Keith on the other hand just bopped in time to the music, much to the joking delight of Lance.) Not being able to do _anything_ that Keith now associated as a common day occurrence.

 

He really didn’t want this to end. But it was inevitable. And Keith hated that small part of him that reminded him every time Lance did something cute, or smile at him. It really hurt.

 

After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Lance spoke up hesitantly.

 

“Do you want to move in with me?”

 

Keith peeked at Lance through half lidded eyes. He sharply inhaled, garnering the attention of the Latino boy, whose brows were drawn in a slight frown.

 

“We already live together, Lance.” Keith replied hesitantly. He shot Lance a pointed look, as if to try and show _exactly_ where they were, still wary as to where this question was going.

 

“No.” Lance said slowly, averting his gaze as a slight blush overtook his features. “I mean, after we graduate— I mean, I don't know what plans you had or anything, but I thought maybe we could keep this going.” Lance’s hands started to flit purposelessly, as they do when he was nervous or feeling slightly awkward.

 

“And what is _this?_ ” Keith asked hesitantly, pulling himself from Lance’s lap. He couldn’t help but feel his heart soar, hopeful in whatever _this_ was didn’t have to end, as he thought.

 

“We make good flatmates, right?” he replied in such a way that he was trying to sound nonchalant, but Keith could hear the slight crack in his voice that betrayed how he truly felt.

 

_Maybe. Just maybe. He might reciprocate._

 

“We get along well and, anyway, Hunk is moving in with Shay so it's not like I could move in with them - though they'd probably be more than happy to let me, but ew, no. I don't need a repeat of last New Years, no thank you. And Pidge is moving back home to try and save up for her Masters, so I'd have to move in with a stranger if I want to stay in the city and—” Lance continued, his hands still flitting around restlessly, as Lance deliberately didn’t look at him.

 

He could feel his heart thump heavily with disappointment.

 

_So, he doesn’t reciprocate. He only wants me to stay because he doesn’t want to be a loner. Maybe I’m just overthinking this._

 

Lance seemed to pick up on Keith’s emotions before he shook his head and looked at Keith, a blush now overtaking his cheeks.

 

“And- And I _like_ you.” Lance swallowed loudly, before taking Keith’s hands into his own. At that, Keith looked up hopefully, afraid that whatever moment they were having would shatter in a moment’s notice.

 

“I like you a _lot_ , Keith.” Lance re-iterated, as if in answer to Keith’s worry. His eyes were soft; fondness and admiration and _love_ swirling like the undercurrents in a river, his blue, blue eyes glimmering with happiness. Keith’s breath caught in his throat. Because that was all the confirmation he had ever wanted and needed.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

A small smile split across his face and Keith twined their fingers together, drawing them even closer. Keith observed how his fingers slotted in perfectly between Lance’s own, and how the callouses on his fingers were softly brushing over Keith’s knuckles.

 

It felt perfect.

 

“Me too.” Keith smiled, allowing Lance to pull him back towards the bed, where they fell with a heavy thump on Keith’s mattress. They lay flushed against each other, breathing in the sights before them, committing each detail to mind.

 

“Can I-?” Lance asked hesitantly, an unsure smile creeping across his face.

 

_God, he is so cute._

“Please.”

 

Shyly, Lance leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to Keith’s lips. It was a short kiss, but that didn’t stop Keith’s lips from tingling at the sensation. Lance’s lips ghosted over his in whisper soft movements before he pulled away, a shy grin making its way on his face.

 

Keith stared at Lance open-eyed, before he gripped the front of Lance’s shirt and leaned in for another kiss. Because that one kiss wasn’t enough. He wanted more. And _oh_ was it better than anything he had ever expected. He wanted to shower this boy with all the affection that he so deserved. He needed to show him how much he meant to him. He wanted to hold this boy and never let go. He had so much he wanted to say in such a short amount of time; but instead, he only uttered three words, each weighed with love.

 

“I love you.” He said as he peppered the corner of Lance’s mouth in soft kisses. He could feel as Lance’s mouth crinkled into a smile.

 

“I love you.” He murmured as he pressed more kisses to Lance’s neck. He could feel Lance’s warming pulse, beating constantly in tandem to his own.

 

“I love you.” He whispered into Lance’s ear. He could feel Lance sharply take a breath before he tilted Keith’s face so that they were facing each other, cupping his face with long tan fingers.

 

“Me too.”

 

 

It was weird thinking that only a few months prior, Keith hadn’t wanted to seek out his dorm-mate because he rather not have his routine and life change to fit another person in. He hadn’t sought out his dorm-mate because people as a whole were unpredictable. Messy. Complicated. Not needed to make his life any better.

 

Oh, how _wrong_ he was. Because meeting Lance was the _best_ change that could have happened to him.

**Author's Note:**

> You can come find me at [cattearambles on tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/cattearambles). I'm still in voltron hell so 99% of the stuff there is voltron stuff.


End file.
